DUAL (2022) Review: Sci-fi Satire Shines

Introduction 

Writer-director Riley Stearns returns to pitch-black humor this time with a sci-fi twist, in Dual (2022). Featuring a binary performance from star Karen Gillan, Dual uses healthcare and cloning as a way into biting satire. 

Synopsis

In the near future, human cloning has been perfected. A company called “Replacement” has turned it into a boon of late-stage capitalism. They offer a service that provides a clone for clients who know they are going to die. As one employee puts it, “a gift for your loved ones” so that one’s death minimally impacts those left behind. Sarah (Karen Gillan) is one of these people.

After receiving a diagnosis with a “98% mortality rate,” she buys a clone, Sarah’s Double (also Gillan). Sarah teaches Sarah’s Double what she can about who she is. They wait for Sarah to succumb to her illness. Yet, she never does, making a miraculous recovery instead. Sarah hopes to have her clone “decommissioned,” but the new 28th Amendment to the U.S Constitution has a surprise for her; she and the clone must duel to the death.

Deadly Doppelgängers

Folklore about doppelgängers, a double of oneself mysteriously out in the world, dates back centuries. The word, German in origin, translates to “double-goer.” Some myths suggest seeing one’s double is a sign of impending death. Others instead perceive the doppelgänger as a “spiritual double.” Regardless of your chosen superstition, the idea of doubles has fascinated artists from Fyodor Dostoevsky to Denis Villeneuve.

There is something fundamentally unnerving about the idea of encountering one’s copy, and Stearns branches forth from that baseline in Dual. As played by Gillan, Sarah and Sarah’s Double are identical in appearance. Tall. Red hair. Slender build. Yet, it is how the differences gradually appear that set Dual apart from other variations on the idea. Sarah watches as her boyfriend Peter (Beulah Koale) and even her mother (Maija Paunio) start preferring her double’s more cheerful approach to life. 

The narrative choice, thrown into the starkest relief by the inclusion of an impending duel, delivers a terrifying thought experiment. What if the people you love don’t in fact want you for who you are? What if they instead want a version of you that fits into their dream visions of you? Sarah faces this down firsthand. Peter kicks her out of the apartment after she recovers. Her mother opts to call Sarah’s Double instead of Sarah. Stearns’s screenplay, therefore, cuts to the primitive human fear of being replaced.

Sarah is robbed of any celebration of her miraculous recovery because she must confront her loved ones’ betrayal. Add to this the delicious wrinkle of a government-mandated deathmatch, and Dual coalesces into the actualization of terrors most often kept for nightmares. Sarah must literally square up to a perceived better version of herself and hope that she can kill it. 

Gillan’s Double Duty

Helping to sell all of this is a committed Gillan. In a performance reminiscent of Colin Farrel’s work in The Lobster (2015), Gillian rapidly sells Sarah as a depressed and isolated person. She speaks in a truncated and matter-of-fact way that foregrounds her discontents. Conversation is a necessity for her, not a pleasure. Once Sarah’s Double enters the frame, Gillan isolates the subtleties that differentiate them even from the start.

Sarah’s Double holds herself higher. She speaks with more inflection and moves with verve. When the duel juts in and Sarah decides to train for it, Gillan channels all the pre-existing apathy and sorrow into a murderous rage. Plus, against all odds, Gillan is also hilarious in the role. Another factor that ties her performance and Stearns writing to the aforementioned work of Yorgos Lanthimos, Gillan embraces a deadpan that amplifies Sarah’s absurdities. 

Accompanying Gillan’s performance is the film’s framework of deliciously vicious satire. Once Sarah receives her diagnosis, Stearns dives into the perpendicular horrors of the abysmal American healthcare system and capitalism. Nowhere is this more expertly manifested than in a scene where Sarah discusses her diagnosis with a doctor (June Hyde).

After explaining that she doesn’t know what Sarah has, only that it has that 98% chance to kill her, the two go back and forth about the remaining 2%. The doctor chalks it up to a “margin of error.” She fixates on mathematical improbability instead of helping Sarah process the news. From there, the doctor only doubles down. She rolls out a convoluted and extended metaphor for accepting death. It amounts to medical bloviation of the highest degree. Stearns shoots the scene in a stark, white, space, deploying a shot-reverse-shot to sap it of any bit of humanity.

Savage Satire

From there, the cloning of it all explores the commodification of grief. “Replacement” has taken the natural process of death and moving on and turned into a product achievable by someone simply spitting in a cup and waiting an hour for a clone. When Sarah’s Double first comes out and there has been a “malfunction” leading to different colored eyes than the real Sarah, the company’s response is to offer a “10% discount.”

Stearns masterfully drains any trace of compassion from the proceedings. Dual depicts the nauseatingly logical progression of a capitalistic society ready to turn anything into a profit margin. The creation of sentient life at a massive scale boils down here to a supply-and-demand transaction. Sarah’s Double is the textual antagonist, but the further into Dual we progress the clearer it is that the culture, one where the Constitution itself has supported the sham. 

Conclusion

Paired with his previous effort, The Art of Self-Defense (2019), Stearns is rapidly securing his spot as one of the most exciting indie writer-directors working. Pair his eye for the farcical absurdities of American life with a lithe filmmaking style, and the results always impress.

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