The One I Love

Director: Charlie McDowell
Screenplay: Justin Lader
Stars: Mark Duplass (Ethan), Elisabeth Moss (Sophie), Ted Danson (The Therapist), Kiana Cason (Waitress), Brett Bietz (Doug), Sean O’Malley (Dave), Mary Steenburgen (Mom), Drew Langer (Brett), Jennifer Spriggs (Ellen), Charlie McDowell (Madison), Mel Eslyn (Victoria)
MPAA Rating: R
Year of Release: 2014
Country: U.S.
The One I Love
The One I LoveNote: The following review contains some spoilers, so proceed with caution if you have not yet seen the film.

The One I Love, the feature film debut of both director Charlie McDowell and writer Justin Lader, turns on a disarming sci-fi twist as a means of digging deeper into the realm of the keenly observed romantic dramedy. Mark Duplass (Safety Not Guaranteed) and Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men) star as Ethan and Sophie, who at the beginning of the film are seeking marital therapy with a counselor played by Ted Danson. It is clear that they are going in circles and not making much progress, and there are allusions to infidelity on Ethan’s part. To mix things up, the counselor sends them to a weekend cottage to renew their relationship, promising that every couple he’s ever sent there has come back “renewed.” Little do they (or we) know that those are ominous words.

When they first arrive, everything seems to be exactly as the counselor promised—a “perfect retreat” for just the two of them. Beautiful wine country, a comfy cottage and guest house, a swimming pool. But, as it turns out, they are not the only ones there. Rather, they discover through a series of confused events the first night and the following morning that they are actually sharing the space with duplicates of themselves, doppelgängers that reflect their idealized versions of each other. Thus, Ethan’s doppelgänger is more relaxed, spontaneous, thoughtful, and physically fit, while Sophie’s is more gentle, compliant, and understanding. At this point in the film, there are a myriad of potential explanations, many of which Ethan and Sophie consider aloud. Have they slipped into another dimension? Are they going crazy? Whatever it is, they agree that it is weird, but they still feel compelled to go with it and spend time with their doppelgänger spouses, at first out of sheer curiosity, but later out of emotional desires that underscore their marital problems. Ironically, it is not Ethan the adulterer who is drawn to the other spouse, but rather Sophie, who finds it more and more difficult to deal with the real Ethan when her idealized version is waiting in the guest house.

Thus, The One I Love poses a challenging philosophical conundrum, namely the disjunction between our idealized notions of love and marriage and the realities with which we’re faced every day. The danger Ethan and Sophie face is the temptation of getting drawn into the fantasy of being with someone who is literally “perfect,” devoid of any and all annoying traits, personal shortcomings, or moral failings. Without giving away any more than I already have, I will say that there is a (relatively) clear explanation of what is happening and why, and the further the film delves into its bizarro scenario, the darker the implications. Director Charlie McDowell manages an impressive tonal balancing act, as parts of the film play as quirky romantic comedy while other parts play with real pathos, and the entire film, with its seemingly inexplicable supernatural premise, is overlaid with a constant sense of creepiness. I doubt that McDowell set out to make a horror movie, but he wouldn’t have to tweak the film’s tone too much to move into truly uncanny “body snatcher” territory.

Some have suggested that The One I Love stretches its premise too far, that it is essentially a 26-minute Twilight Zone episode drawn out to feature length. I never got that sense while watching the film, even though there is some sense of repetition. Yet, the repetition feels necessary, as Ethan and Sophie must work their way through the situation in which they find themselves, which gives the otherwise whacked-out scenario a sense of realism. Crucial to the film’s effectiveness in this regard are the performances by Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss, who are simply superb. Their roles are tricky because each actor is playing two different variations of the same character, and the delicacy with which they manage the differences and similarities between the real and idealized Ethan and Sophie grounds the film in an emotional realism that is genuinely stirring.

The end of the film has a number of tricks up its sleeve, most of which are based on the increasing difficulty in differentiating the members of each pair, so that no one on screen and no one in the audience is completely sure who is doing what. That kind of puzzle-box trickery is pretty much par for the course in indie movies trying to make a splash, but in The One I Love it works beyond its narrative mechanisms because the merging and blurring of identities is key to the film’s underlying themes about how we confuse our needs and desires.

Copyright ©2014 James Kendrick

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Overall Rating: (3.5)




James Kendrick

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