Movie Review: Dual

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

A very entertaining dark comedy. 

This movie delivers the excellent deadpan dark comedy, you have come to except from director/ writer Riley Stearns previous films. This is a film that does not hold back on the darker and more disturbing parts of its comedy, and it is all the funnier for that. In fact some of the funniest scenes are also some of the most disturbing. This movie also gives us the perfect actress for Stearns' sense of humor and that is Karen Gillain. Movie fans already know how funny she can be in a movie thanks to the Jumanji and Gaurdians of the Galaxy films. However this film pushes her comedic skills to a point they really haven't been pushed to before, relying completely on her deadpan delivery. The very premise of the movie (a woman preparing for a duel to the death with her clone) is absurd and strange enough on its own. To mix in the filmmaker's dark and twisted sense of humor only makes the film all the more absurd. Unlike many comedies that are this absurd the humor doesn't come from how over the top the characters act but how deadpan and causal they feel. This is especially true of our main character, an awkward and matter of fact person, who not only takes the absurdness seriously but also in a calmer manner than any of us would. Yet at the same time this character never feels like a caricature or something less than real. Because this as absurd as most of the film is, we begin to care what happens because we grow to care about this character. Thinking about whether she or her clone will survive the story, creates some genuine suspense and we are left hoping that our heroine will survive. This also makes it so that the film has some surprisingly touching moments between all the absurdity.

On the downside this film lacks the commentary or depth of Riley Stearns' previous movies. You get the feeling that this movie is trying to say something, but in the end it doesn't say anything that insightful or meaningful. This can make the film feel like it has a bit of air of unearned self-importance behind some of its dialogue and certain scenes. Yet this does not take away from how entertaining the movie is.