Sundance Film Festival 2022: Dual Explores The Relationship Between A Woman And Her Clone
Karen Gillan takes on double duty.
Writer-director Riley Stearns returns to Sundance Film Festival 2022 with his deadpan sci-fi thriller Dual. Starring Karen Gillan, Dual centers around a woman named Sarah who receives a terminal diagnosis. In hopes of saving her family and friends from pain, she makes the decision to be cloned. But when she makes a sudden recovery, her plans to get her clone decommissioned fail and she is forced into a duel to the death.
Sarah has strained relationships with the people in her life who she is getting cloned for, but things take a turn for the worse when her mother and boyfriend like her clone better than her. When she learns she has to duel her clone if she wants to keep her life, she partners up with trainer Trent (Aaron Paul) to teach her the skills she’ll need to survive the battle. They have the best chemistry and their dynamic really plays up the dark humor of the film, complete with hip hop dancing.
With Black Mirror meets Hunger Games vibes, Karen Gillan delivers a stiff and cynical performance as the film explores the dualities between Sarah and Sarah’s Double. The film explores ethical, moral, and psychological questions about clones, identity, and humanity. Can these two Sarah’s co-exist and what if you were essentially forced to kill… yourself? As the title suggests, the film’s finale offers dual perspectives and it isn’t quite clear who makes it out alive.
RLJE Films has acquired U.S. rights to Dual, which will be released in theaters this year. See Pop Culture Planet’s Best of the Fest, below:
