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Dual Movie Review

Dual is a 2022 science fiction thriller film directed by Riley Stearns and starring Karen Gillian in the titular dual role. It is a tonally incoherent, but solid genre feature.

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“But I’m happy my dog lives“

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A woman opts for a cloning procedure after she receives a terminal diagnosis but when she recovers her attempts to have her clone decommissioned fail, leading to a court-mandated duel to the death. This is a very strange movie tonally speaking. The premise is fully SF, but in refusing to fully explore its thorny themes, the movie resorts to becoming a thriller with some clear comedic touches that were overbearing to me, but interesting.

I found the Aaron Paul character pretty much as a self-parody of the actor himself. He employs an extremely deep voice and this very strict, almost robotic teacher mode that the character made me laugh. I don’t think that was international all the time, but most of it must have been intentional. The scenes where the two just train are so much fun, but they do take way too much of the second act, constituting this filler-like feeling of the material.

I would have preferred a stronger exploration of what it means to be human and the ethnic complexities of human cloning. Some of this thematic resonance is here, but certainly not enough. The ending was a bit unexpected and I really liked it, but even more could have been done with the central dynamic between Sarah and her clone.

Karen Gillian is awesome here. She uses this very robotic, cold voice to distinguish her clone version from the real Sarah and it really worked. Both are very believable and Gillian continues to be one of the more underrated actresses working in Hollywood today.

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Dual was made on the cheap and it shows on multiple occasions, especially in the uninspired cinematography. The movie is very muted technically speaking and overly cold emotionally, but the concept is very original and the acting was great. I just wish that the movie developed its storyline in a deeper fashion.