Karen Gillan is seeing double at Sundance in Riley Stearns latest film, Dual.
The motif of cloning, in particular the clone and the original co-existing temporarily, has featured in several recent projects. Swan Song and Living With Yourself for example. While those films focused on the relationship between the two copies, Stearns uses the situation to explore how it changes the original.
Gillan plays Sarah. A woman who is wasting her life away even before she finds out she is dying. In fact, the news of her impending death is not enough for her to find the on button for her emotions. Given the option to have a replacement clone once she is gone, sparing her family the grief, she wearily accepts.
During the handover process while she is dying, she is perturbed when the clone seamlessly takes over her life. Proving to be much better at it than she was. A better lover, partner and daughter. When she finds out she is in remission, the clone is unwilling to give up their own life. The result is a court-mandated fight to the death. An example of which cold opens the film. Screened for entertainment to a live crowd and television audience.
Ironically, now she faces death by (technically) her own hands, it kickstarts something inside her. A will and desire to finally embrace life.
She hires a combat trainer (played by Aaron Paul) to get her ready for the last duel. The first time Karen Gillan will fight Karen Gillan since, well Avengers Endgame.
Stearns’ The Art of Self Defense was also set in a Dojo and similarly features his jet black sense of humour. There is an absurdity and matter of factness to the humour and science fiction reminiscent of the work of Yorgos Lanthimos. The scenes where Sarah receives news of her illness from her doctor are painfully awkward and hilarious in spite of the seriousness of the situation.
Gillan delivers a multi-layered performance as the two Sarahs. Quickly able to distinguish two separate identities with only the subtlest changes to her physical appearance. Not only showing the evolution of the original Sarah during training (all that is missing is a training montage) but also exploring the crux of the issues facing both versions as they meet one last time before the showdown.
Some may feel slightly short-changed by the finale (potentially suffering from The Grey syndrome), however it is in keeping with the world Stearns has created and in character with both incarnations of Gillan.
Dual features two great performances from its lead but similar to the Sarahs, never quite comes together as a whole.
Dual screens at the Sundance Film Festival
Rating: 
Director: Riley Stearns
Stars: Karen Gillan, Karen Gillan, Aaron Paul, Theo James, Beulah Koale
Runtime: 101 minutes
Country: USA
