We Want What We Can't Have

I’ve been told, fairly often, that comedies are all about unfulfilled desire: The characters have to want something that’s just out of reach. Two of the films I’m covering in this week’s newsletter focus on people who shouldn’t get what they want – while the third is all about someone who wants what we all want, a sense of security and maybe a good night’s sleep, and can’t get it. And that works, because that movie is decidedly not a comedy.

So let’s start with the ones that are.

James Sweeney’s clever, funny, queerish dramedy Twinless had one of the stranger release arcs of 2005, winning the audience award at Sundance (and a special jury award for co-star Dylan O’Brien) and then bouncing around the festival circuit, collecting prizes and strong critical support, before rolling into theaters in the fall and more or less disappearing.

What happened? It’s simple, really: Lionsgate tried to build a campaign around a big twist that doesn’t really exist, and the attempts to write around the purported twist kept even the most enthusiastic reviews from fully communicating the movie’s strengths.

I think the best comparison I can make is to the fuss over The Drama a couple of months ago, which is also – at least technically – about two people whose relationship is threatened by something that happened in the past. I am waffling about this because Twinless and The Drama have literally nothing else in common, either narratively or emotionally; it’s just that both films reveal a specific piece of information to the audience very, very early in the action. That’s not a twist, but a plot development … and in the case of The Drama, the nature of that development isn’t something I wanted to spoil. But experiencing the reveal alongside the other characters – and processing our own reaction in contrast to theirs – is essential to Kristoffer Borgli is doing.

Twinless, though, is all about knowing something ahead of the character who’s in the dark. And that’s easy enough to talk about. We meet sweet-natured but slightly dim Roman (O’Brien) at the funeral for his twin brother Rocky, who was killed in a traffic accident. Unable to move on, Roman moves into Rocky’s apartment and starts attending a support group for bereaved twins. It’s there that he meets Dennis (writer-director Sweeney), who’s a little weird and overeager to share while Roman is more reticent, but clearly grieving … something. That something is revealed in a quick flashback about twenty minutes in, and the fact that we know it, but Roman doesn’t, is essential to what Sweeney is doing.

Because while Twinless isn’t as overtly comic as The Drama – I mean, even the title is ironic on that one – it is very much a comedy. It’s one of those comedies about sad, awkward people finding common ground despite their flaws, taking place in a slightly heightened reality that allows for running gags about Dennis being a terrible liar or Roman constantly misunderstanding aphorisms.

Sweeney's world can also accommodate Aisling Franciosi’s scene-stealing as Dennis’ co-worker Marcie, whose impossibly radiant personality conceals an unfailingly moral soul – and whose discovery of Dennis’ secret in the second act further complicates things for everybody. (Abbott Elementary’s James Perfetti and Heated Rivalry’s Francois Arnaud are also floating around in there, as other potential complications. They're allowed to be funny, too.)

And at that point, Twinless is the best kind of deadpan farce, letting O’Brien stretch himself as an actor – he’s been building a really interesting career for himself since those Maze Runner movies – and finding an excellent scene partner in Sweeney, who plays Dennis’ neurotic-comic energy as an obvious defense mechanism, one that generates tension as well as laughter. Dennis is a pathological liar, but he’s also terrible at it. That’s funny and sad!

I would have loved to hear Sweeney discuss his choices as an actor and filmmaker in an audio commentary, but Lionsgate’s Twinless Blu-ray offers no special features at all; maybe he didn’t want to do it without O’Brien? That’d make a kind of sense. Either way, the film holds up just fine on its own.

How to Make a Killing is a little less satisfying, I’m afraid. And it should have been a slam dunk!

John Patton Ford’s adaptation of Roy Horniman’s 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal – previously brought to the screen in the Ealing Studios classic Kind Hearts and Coronets – comes packing the same class-conscious perspective as his acclaimed debut Emily the Criminal, features Glen Powell as its sympathetic antihero and couldn’t have had a more favorable landing, given that there’s never been a better time to release a movie about rich, entitled jerkbags getting picked off by an ostensibly decent guy: Powell’s Becket Redfellow is entirely justified in his killing spree, since he’s murdering his way up his family tree so he can claim the inheritance his impoverished mother was denied.

So what went wrong? I think the decision to pivot away from the broadness of the earlier film, which cast Alec Guinness as all eight members of the D’Ascoyne family, to a glossier and more realistic treatment undermines the fun of it all, forcing Powell to play a more grounded version of the protagonist. Dennis Price’s Louis Mazzini was a desperate, manic schemer; as Becket, Powell is far more well-adjusted, a self-made man who’s worked his way up to a good job on Wall Street – at a firm run by his kindly uncle (Bill Camp), sure, but Becket is good at it –  and building a solid relationship with the genuinely sweet Ruth (Jessica Henwick).

As our hero grows more comfortable, he’s tempted to put his dreams of revenge aside, but he feels a responsibility to his mother’s memory. And I suppose that’s a better motivation than Mazzini’s bloodlust in Kind Hearts, but it’s at odds with the antic nature of all the murders, and the swings between introspective drama and light-hearted assassinations keeps Ford from building a consistent tone.

Throw in a winky Margaret Qualley as a childhood friend of Becket’s who keeps turning up to ask for favors, and add the complications of any contemporary remake of a thriller –computers, cell phones, CCTV – and the third act collapses on itself. It’s also just weird, after watching Powell take such delight in disguising himself in Hit Man and Chad Powers, that this specific project should cast him as its straight man: Becket spends all his time trying to be anonymous, and we can all feel Powell bristling at the restraints. And who can blame him? We all know he's got that killer Tilda Swinton impression ready to go.

The wobbly tone also hamstrings guest victims like Zach Woods, Topher Grace and Ed Harris, as well, forcing them into caricatures in sharp contrast to someone like Camp, who brings a warmth to Uncle Warren that threatens Becket’s plans more than any homicide detectives could. That’s an idea I wish the film had explored further, but of course it’s too complex for a movie about a guy knocking off his entire family. That’s the real problem: This particular story needs to be black-and-white, and Ford wants to work in the grays.

VVS Films’ Blu-ray offers an 1080p/24 master so crisp you could slice a tomato on Powell’s cheekbones – that’s a thing, right? – and a perfectly cromulent Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio mix. (It’s just not the kind of movie that lends itself to aural acrobatics, though the soundscape does come to life during Maguire’s megachurch concert and the final showdown in Redfellow Manor.) Extras are limited to a reel of B-roll that demonstrates – among other things – just how many locations this thing had, and some 45 minutes of EPK interviews with Ford, Powell, Henwick, Camp, Woods and Harris. Note that this is only available in Canada, so you'll have to import it ... or wait for A24 to announce its own edition.

And speaking of which, we finally come to If I Had Legs I’d Kick You … or rather, come back to it. Mary Bronstein’s immersive, intensive drama – which earned Rose Byrne an Oscar nomination for her performance as a woman on the verge of multiple nervous breakdowns – had its Canadian Blu-ray release last December from VVS Films, but Americans didn’t get their own disc until A24 Films rolled out its own disc last week. (BD only; there’s no 4K for this title.)

The disc VVS released in December offered a commentary track with Bronstein and cinematographer Christopher Messina and a very short EPK-style appearance from Bronstein and Byrne; A24’s release – also in 1080p/24 and Dolby Atmos – drops the clip but keeps the commentary, and adds 20 minutes of deleted and extended scenes, most of which feel like they were trimmed for pacing or maybe to avoid pushing the audience into panic attacks halfway through the picture.

There’s also a look at how one of the film’s key tracking shots was staged, and a production featurette in which the filmmaker and her cast seem very eager to show us the most intense art can be made by happy, well-adjusted people. And you know what? I believe them.

Twinless and the Canadian release of How to Make a Killing are now available on Blu-ray from Lionsgate and VVS Films, respectively. And the US disc of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is now available on Blu-ray directly from A24, joining the disc VVS released last year. In addition to the different extras, this one also has postcards.

Up next: Warner Archive’s Blu-ray of The Late Show just arrived, and went straight to the top of the pile. And of course subscribers to the paid tier can look forward to a fresh edition of What’s Worth Watching hitting their inbox on Friday morning. Upgrade that subscription now so you don’t miss out!