Twinless Review: Dylan O’Brien Enthralls In This Shifty Instant Classic Circling A Twisted Friendship

Few films are as fluent, as confidently leaping in emotional tonalities as James Sweeney’s astonishing second feature, Twinless. As one of those films predicated on a slew of cunning narrative turns, it’s best you step in blind. Yet, like any great, superseding work, it doesn’t let its sustained or revisited enjoyment be merely held hostage to those twists. Twinless revels in its undeniably clever conceits, while always maintaining a self-reflexive, empathetic eye probing the many lies and subterfuge embedded within. What could have just as well been yet another tale about an ach൩e for connection, the lengths we go to forge a new one in the shadow of irrevocable, defining loss, turns into som𒁃ething incredibly twisted, variegated in layering, an emotional minefield in Sweeney’s hands.

It's never missed Roman (Dylan O’Brien) that he’s the less smart twin. When his brother Rocky, also essayed by O’Brien, suddenly dies in an accident, Roman’s life is hurled upside down. He gets mistaken for his well-travelled, suave brother by those who haven’t heard of his passing. Occasionally, he makes use of it too, like the gym membership. But the loss of his brother cuts so deep, like that of a soulmate, Roman struggles to function on a daily basis, doing regular stuff by himself. He signs up for🌺 a support group of bereaved twins where he meets Dennis (Sweeney in a gloriously delicious role, one with designs swinging quicker than yo𝕴u can catch up); the two strike up a friendship that begins with trauma bonding but cements itself as unshakably deeper. Their early stabs at a connection pulls you into the film right away. Dennis is gay, so was Rocky; a detail that will grow to reframe the swiftly deepening friendship between Dennis and Roman. Roman says how he has only recently discovered how needy he is. With his brother’s passing, he can’t seem to be doing anything, even grocery shopping, alone. While the sharp and savvy Dennis divulges little about his dead brother beyond his guilt in his passing, he enthusiastically agrees to every hangout request of Roman.

What can all-encompassing loneliness compel you into believing, doing, if a certain companionship seems to be the one closest to your desires? Grief comes in waves. You might think it’s safely retreated, tucked out of view, before it unexpectedly ambushes you. Roman is overwhelmed, chancing across a pair of twins sharing a laugh at the store. It’s not even that Roman and his brother were terri꧑bly close until the latter’s death. The two had almost drifted apart, d♐espite each strongly yearning for the other’s abiding emotional presence. In his first chat with Dennis, Roman talks of the idea that, as twins, you are supposed to do everything together. But certain tough choices one might make trigger chasms between the two. Resentment follows, a feeling of being spurned, cast aside. Those necessary, deep-seated grudges end up never getting addressed; the air remains uncleared, as death swoops in and snips the bond, once and for all.

On the other hand, Dennis is a loner, his pitiless dry sarcasm always on the loose. He makes a ton of deeply questionable decisions throughout. He can be casually cruel, abrasive in full awareness. Never once does the film wheedle out unearned sentimentality. However, when an emotional explosion in Roman’s confession of regrets and pent-up rage at his brother, Dennis taking up the latter’s absent presence, the mome♊nt is organic, imme🌞nse. All that was unsaid surges out, O’Brien oscillating between fury and desolation to shattering effect.

The writer-director orchestrates with unbelievable smoothness a sleight-of-hand arriving twenty minutes into the film, accompanying its title drop, but ensures it never just stays a gambit to impress. As you sink deeper into its complex emotional maze, awkward, stinging and gut-wrenching, Twinless keeps expanding, pushing back against boundaries of initial perception. Comedy and pathos mingle as effortlessly as the unlikely ‘bromance’ at the center of the film, Nik Boyanov’s fluid editing slicing together revelations and withholding in Sweeney's witty verbal sparring. Tension and pacing are further amplified by Jung Jae-Il’s disco𝕴ncerting score. This is a tale of narcissism, lies, projection o𒐪n several levels; Sweeney handles each beat with fearless abandon.

Twinless is a restlessly inventive wallop of a film, destined to be a Sundance breakout and immediately marking Sweeney as a major director to watch. It keeps changing shape, knocking you out with equal parts zany humor and incisive observations. Its mischief-structurally, mood-wise-leaves the viewer buzzing. This is a thrillingly charged feat in storytelling. Trust Twinless to dominate the cult𝔍ural conversation all the way to award season.

Debanjan Dhar is covering Sundance Film Festival 2025 as part of the accredited press.