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- [00:00]
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- [00:18]
Aisha Harris
The show, these days a lot of listeners are asking how they can support the show, and there's a super easy, totally free thing you can do. It's it takes literally two minutes. Go into the podcast app where you're listening right now and rate and review this show. That's it. Doing that helps other people find Pop Culture Happy hour, and that helps keep us going. Thanks so much. Twin List is about an unlikely duo, a personable bro who's not the brightest tool in the shed, and a prickly, often condescending gay man. When they meet in a support group for people who have lost their twin, a very interesting bond is formed.
- [00:58]
Glen Weldon
This movie's got a wry sensibility, great chemistry, and it dares to take some dark turns you probably won't see coming. I'm Glenn Weldon.
- [01:05]
Aisha Harris
And I'm Aisha Harris. And today we're talking about Twin lists on Pop Culture Happy hour from npr.
- [01:14]
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- [03:07]
Aisha Harris
Is one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast, Gene Demby. Hey Gene, welcome back.
- [03:12]
Gene Demby
What's good, Joe? Oh my God. So glad to be here.
- [03:14]
Aisha Harris
Great to have you. Also, I'm not sure if listeners know, but you yourself are a twin.
- [03:19]
Gene Demby
I am a twin. Another kind of twin in this movie?
- [03:21]
Aisha Harris
Well, yes, but I'm very excited to hear your thoughts on that. But first, you know, Twinless is written, directed by and stars James Sweeney as Dennis, a moody loner whose twin brother has passed. He connects with Roman, a doltish but vulnerable guy who's also lost his twin brother. Roman's played by Dylan o'. Brien. Now, despite having little in common besides a deceased sibling, they grow close and lend one another some emotional support in dealing with their grief. But and this is a pretty big but, there's a lot they don't know about each other. And that's all I'm going to say about that for now. Twinless is in theaters now. Jean, I'm going to start with you. Give it to us. How do we feel about this movie?
- [04:01]
Gene Demby
I love this movie and it was so stressful to watch. I watched it and then my wife who had been sleeping like woke up and she was like, hey, I wanted to watch this with you. And I was like, I will absolutely watch this again with you right now. And I watched it again with her and saw her sink into the couch like, oh my God, like, watch this dress. And I was like, I know you have to experience this too. I've never seen James Sweeney, any of his work before. Like, whatever he does henceforth, I'm all on board with that. This movie is like really intense and it's both like a small character movie, but also it's so intense I was like, oh, this is gonna turn into a thriller or a unnerving twist to happen. Cause there are a lot of unnerving twists. But I thought somebody was there was gonna be bloodshed at some point. And so the whole time you're watching the movie, the coil is sort of wrapping tighter and tighter and yet and this is so wild about it. It's like legitimately laugh out loud funny. Right? The guy who plays Roman and Rocky, his twin, I mean this in the best way. I mean, no shade. He's very good at playing an idiot.
- [05:01]
Aisha Harris
Yes. No, that's so true. Yeah.
- [05:04]
Gene Demby
So I've been, like, dying to chop it up with somebody, especially y', all, about this. Just. Cause it is a movie that, like, invites so much discussion.
- [05:10]
Aisha Harris
Yes. I think it's important to stress that as stressful as this movie is, it is also comedy. So I'm glad you hinted at that, Gene. But, Glenn. Yes. Tell me, how are we feeling about this?
- [05:22]
Glen Weldon
Oh, I'm so glad that Jean is on the panel today because I think, A, because I miss you.
- [05:26]
Gene Demby
Oh, thank you. Likewise. Likewise.
- [05:27]
Glen Weldon
But B, because I think between the two of us, I think we got this movie. Gene is a twin. I'm a gay man who spent most of my early twenties hurling myself at straight men who tended to say to me at some point, I just don't think about you like that, bro. So I think we got it covered. I love this film on its own, and especially as the second film from James Sweeney. I saw his first film, which is called Straight Up, a while back and I remember thinking, this is a great first film. But I cannot wait to see his next one because he also wrote and directed Straight Up. He also starred in it. He played a gay man who started to question his identity because he found himself drawn romantically to a woman. It was funny, it was sweet, but not too sweet, which is important to me. It was also poking at some ideas that don't get explored in a sympathetic way about identity. The only thing I noticed about that first film is that you could hear the screenplay, if that makes sense. Like, the dialogue was very witty and very crisp, but the characters sometimes came off as mouthpieces. The rhythms were just a bit too arch, a little too theater, a little too sitcom Y, a little too set up punchline. He has settled in with this movie. He's created characters who say funny things. He has not come up with funny things and then created characters to say them. These are very natural rhythms. These characters are given room to deepen and complicate. And that's most seen in the character of Marcy, who becomes Roman's girlfriend.
- [06:46]
Gene Demby
Oh, my God.
- [06:46]
Glen Weldon
She's played by Aisling Franchosi. And she is a broad, comic character when we first meet her. So it's clear we're seeing her through the James Sweeney character's eyes, Denys eyes. But the script and the actor allow her to grow and deepen and find other registers to play, and she becomes a very important part of the movie. This is a very enjoyable film.
- [07:05]
Aisha Harris
Yeah, you've just convinced me to go back and watch straight up. I also really love this movie. And while I am neither a gay man nor a twin, I absolutely jibe with James Sweeney's whole energy and vibe and his comedic sensibilities, like Glenn. That point you made about it, like him being able to tap into a sweetness that is never too sweet, is absolutely true here. Because his character Dennis in this film, he is kind of a condescending, I think I'm better than you, sort of. He has that vibe, but he softens over time through his relationship with Roman and being able to play an idiot as Dylan o' Brien does, it's like playing drunk. Right. It's hard to do. And so when you can do it well, oh my goodness, it works so well.
- [07:56]
Gene Demby
Hey, how do you know if lemons are ripe?
- [07:58]
Aisha Harris
It's yellow. Unripe lemons are green.
- [08:01]
Gene Demby
So why do they got so many unripe ones on?
- [08:04]
Aisha Harris
Those are limes. He is a quote unquote dolt or an idiot, but he also is aware that he is not very smart. There's such a great dynamic between the two of these characters because at one point he's like, look, I know that I'm not very smart, but please treat me like a human being.
- [08:19]
Gene Demby
Can you not laugh at me? I know I'm not the brightest tool in the shed, but I don't appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, of course. I'm sorry. You know, if I get something wrong, tell me. Cause then I can know better.
- [08:33]
Aisha Harris
Would now be a good time to point out, I think you meant to say sharpest tool in the shed.
- [08:37]
Gene Demby
I love that scene.
- [08:38]
Aisha Harris
That like, very fine line between being kind of dumb, but also his ability to be vulnerable in a way that Dennis can't. It's so rare to see that.
- [08:48]
Gene Demby
Absolutely.
- [08:48]
Aisha Harris
Yeah. This is just a fun movie. But I also feel as though we can't really talk about this movie beyond surface level without getting into. There's a pretty big twist. I will say that that comes early on in the movie. And so we're going to get into that. We're going to get into some major spoilers. So just giving you a warning now, here's the gist. Dennis is not in fact a twin. It is revealed even worse. Oh God. This is where I started really sinking into my seat while watching this. Even worse, he's indirectly responding for the death of Roman's twin, Rocky. Dennis and Rocky had a one night stand and Dennis became upset when Rocky didn't follow up with him afterward. Honestly, relatable. I've been there. He angrily confronts Rocky on the street, and then Rocky was struck and killed by a car because he stepped off the sidewalk without looking both ways. And now Dennis is maybe, I guess, trying to absolve his guilt by befriending Roman. And also, it's worth noting that Roman is in town. He's there because he's helping to settle up Rocky's loose ends. He never had the opportunity to know Rocky's like, real life. So he has no idea that Dennis is who he is. Wow. And this is revealed, like, 20 minutes in. I could see a movie where you don't find this out until the third act, and it would feel very manipulative. That's not what happens here. Is that the key, or is that the secret sauce to this working?
- [10:13]
Glen Weldon
Well, see, as soon as that revelation happens, the movie changes. The movie becomes a thriller, but kind of an emotional thriller. Right. It becomes a ticking time bomb because there's narrative suspense all of a sudden, because we know we've seen movies before, and the movie's job at that point is to raise the stakes and show us just how close these two men are becoming. Show us, make us feel what we know is going to be lost. And I think it does that really smartly by letting Marcy become a real sympathetic, rounded character. I think that the fact that she's the vector by which this friendship lives or dies is a really smart thing that this movie does.
- [10:49]
Aisha Harris
Yeah.
- [10:50]
Gene Demby
Because Marcy has, like, a sort of a longitudinal relationship with Dennis.
- [10:54]
Announcer
Right.
- [10:54]
Gene Demby
She's known him for a long time. And so she's starting to put together, like, hey, you don't have a twin brother. Like, she starts to, like, put the pieces together. The scene in which Rocky is killed. My wife, when we watch movies together, she yells like, she yells when exciting, dramatic things happen. And so, because I had just seen it, like, literally just before she sat down to watch it, I, like, looked at her, I was like, here we go. Here comes the. Here it goes. And she yells so loud. I was like, oh, my God, our baby's asleep. Please. Once it's revealed that Dennis has this relationship with Rocky, and he was like, you know, a little pressed, right? Like, after their one night stand, he was sort of like, you can see there's this really funny moment. He's, like, trying to, like, he's asking people who are sort of disinterested, like, should I reach out to Rocky? And, like, he's obviously fishing for someone to tell him the thing that he wants to hear, which is like, yes. Oh, man. My wife kept saying, this dude loves to fly close to the sun. Like, Dennis keeps. The closer he gets to Roman, the more he becomes kind of ensconced in parts of Rocky's world is just looming over the last, what, like, hour and 20 minutes of the movie. And their friendship is so. It's, like, legitimately beautiful to watch. Right. Like, they look out for each other. They seem to really enjoy each other's company. There's, like, very unfussy companionship. Right. They like so that they are, like, naturally in sync, even though, you know. And I think this is, like, one of the themes of the movies. Like, they. You would not necessarily assume that these two people would be friends. And I think I don't want to ruin too much, but, like, they sort of question, like, would we be friends had we had the universe aligned a different way? And it's like, oh, it's just so heartbreaking.
- [12:24]
Aisha Harris
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I also find interesting about this is that, like, Dennis is clearly unhinged in every way possible, and there's a movie here where it becomes like any other obsession movie and someone gets murdered or the very least, there's like, a big showdown or something like that. And what I find interesting is that, like, Dennis is not necessarily interested in Roman sexually, or at least I don't get that sense. It's more like he both has a sense of guilt. Yes. He's attracted to him because he looks.
- [12:57]
Gene Demby
He looks exactly like this dude he was, like, infatuated with. Yeah.
- [13:00]
Aisha Harris
And we also learn, interestingly, that he has this weird thing about twins. Like, he, like, wants to be a twin, and he. There's a great, great reference to It Takes Two, the. The classic Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen movie. But I found it so interesting because you could also see it going in that direction of, like, this homoerotic tension, but it never really gets there. I think all the ways it kind of avoids that and focuses in on this idea of these two very different people managing to be friends is what is so fascinating. Like, all the turns that you can imagine this taking and how it subverts those in every way, which I think is what makes this so great.
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Announcer
Yeah.
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Glen Weldon
We mentioned Dylan o' Brien playing Roman as, you know, kind of a adult, and he does it well, and he does it by saying something like, I'm not the brightest tool in the shed. So, folks, if you heard that in Aisha's intro when you had your emails already. No, don't. That's from the movie. It's a line from the movie, sir.
- [13:54]
Aisha Harris
Thank you, Glad.
- [13:54]
Glen Weldon
So settle down. But he also briefly plays the dead twin Rocky in flashbacks. And I gotta say, the first time we meet Rocky, I, a gay man who's seen gay characters played by straight actors forever, I was like, oh, he's making choices. Like, does Glad have a hotline? And do I need to call it? Because that is a lot. At one point, we see him coming out of his apartment. The first line out of his mouth is drama. And I'm like, can we not? This is a hate crime. But then I remember how often I say drama to my. And I will continue to say it. So at that point, I kind of relaxed a bit because, like, Letius without sin cast the first Sharon Stone. You know what I'm saying? And Rocky turns out to be a very familiar type, a very hot gay who just is completely comfortable in his skin. And it's important for us to see him like that and for him to be that. So we can then see how comparatively stunted and lost Roman is, how much Rocky's departure and call it for what it is, abandonment, really, how much that cost him. And I thought that was a really important note for the movie to hit.
- [14:56]
Gene Demby
The movie. What doesn't imply. It sort of says outright that, like, part of the reason the two of them, Rocky and Roman, who were apparently incredibly close when they're younger, part of the reason they were strange was when Rocky came out to Roman, Roman responded horribly. And when his brother basically left, like, you know, clearly, I guess the implication is he went to someplace where he could be safer or more, you know, find community. Roman felt abandoned, you know, and he sort of carried this guilt. Like, I drove away this person who I love more than anybody. Glenn, you were saying that, like, you can see how comparatively stunted Roman is relatives of Rocky, but also, like, that's clearly why Dennis was drawn to him, too. Like, that Rocky was so comfortable in his own skin. And Dennis is sort of very charming, but, like, very, you know, but very dorky. And so, like, you could see why these two people who are, like, searching for both companionship and sort of. And searching for kind of confidence, would feel like the loss of this person in particular.
- [15:46]
Aisha Harris
Yeah, yeah. Gene, I don't want to pry, but I am curious about, like, the twin perspective. I would love to hear a little bit more about how that played for you as a twin.
- [15:56]
Gene Demby
Well, I should say I'm a fraternal twin, so my sister and I, like, there was the gender stuff. You know, so, like, obviously we were really, really close when we were younger. We obviously had a playmate who was the same age. You know, we played with each other's toys. Twin years. You sort of started, like, going in different directions. But, like, you know, there is a sense of. And I think this is probably true of all siblings who are close in age, but that sense of, like, you know, you live in a microculture of the house that you grow up in, right. And so you have this person who you grow up with, the same parent. Like, you know, sometimes when you have up the sibling and the sibling is far apart enough in age, like, those parents have different sort of, like, capacities or whatever. But, like, when you are a twin, you have a person who, like, very, very instinctually understands what it's like to have the upbringing you had, like, in a way that no one else had. Right. Like in this movie, you see that Roman has a really testy relationship with his mom, who was played by Lauren Graham, Lorelai Gilmore. I was very curious about, like, what was Rocky's relationship like to this? Like, was it one of those things, like, I feel abandoned in part because, like, you left me to deal with this person who I don't get along with right. By myself, you know, but also just like this very sweet story that Rocky tells about his brother, about this injury he had when he was young, and how his brother didn't want him to go through it alone. And so like, basically made it so that he had the same injuries that kind of like, you have a built in best friend is like a really, really powerful thing. You just have someone you don't have to explain everything to, you know?
- [17:10]
Aisha Harris
Yeah, yeah. I never really thought about that perspective before about having the same parent in the same moments, because I grew up in a household where I. There were several years between my sister and I, and then I have two younger sisters who are decades younger than me. And I had, like, my parents when we didn't have a lot of money, and then we had a little bit more money by the time my second sibling came in. So, like, that is such a. And I love the way Lauren Grant has a small role in this movie. Those moments when she's with Roman on screen just feel so I can feel it. I can understand it so well. And there's love there, but also there's so much fraughtness there.
- [17:52]
Glen Weldon
And if you'd seen straight up, you would have noticed how many Gilmore Girls jokes there are in that movie. So it's kind of fun. It's Great to see Lord Graham here.
- [17:59]
Gene Demby
Easter egg.
- [18:00]
Aisha Harris
I'm sure it was quite the boon for him to get her. He's like, yes, this is my dream.
- [18:05]
Glen Weldon
I just want to really briefly talk about the ending without revealing the end. It's perfect. And in a movie like this, it's not about the bomb going off. We know the bomb's gonna go off. We're waiting for it. What's important about a movie like this is what happens after you have to nail it. Because that's the thing. We don't know how it's gonna do. And this thing had five minutes to go. And I thought, how is he gonna land this plane? Because, you know, all of a sudden I realized, oh, we're in the movie's last scene. This is the last beat, the last moment. It has to pay for itself. And it so does, in a quiet, perfect way. That doesn't feel over determined. That doesn't feel, you know, workshopped. That doesn'. It doesn't feel clever and sweaty. It just feels natural. And I just love that choice that the movie makes at the end there.
- [18:44]
Gene Demby
Absolutely. 1,000% agree. You know, not to be, like. To like Gilda Lily too much. But, like, you know, there's all these pieces about sort of, like the crisis in male friendships. And I just think, like, a real thing. But, like, this is a movie I would like a lot of, like, straight dudes who are sort of alienated. Cause it's, like, such a smart movie about. There's a scene right towards the end when Roman, he doesn't have anything to do when his girlfriend is otherwise engaged. Right. And just, I guess, thinking about all those pieces about, like, hey, man, I didn't. My husband, my boyfriend, whoever, to, like, have someone to talk to that is not me, you know, like. And it's like a very real thing that I think a lot of dudes will recognize in themselves and a lot of women will like, yeah, like, yes. This is what I'm trying to tell you about. I need you to go out in the world and have an emotional, intimate community. That's not just me doing all that stuff.
- [19:29]
Aisha Harris
Yeah. I mean, I don't have anything to add, except I completely agree with both of you. And I think this movie is very good at just kind of planting little seeds, coming back to them, but not in a. Like, I'm gonna make sure, you know, that I'm coming back to it. It's just natural. I hope to see more from James Sweeney and from Dylan o', Brien, because, again, my goodness, so fantastic. I know he was, you know, if you watched certain shows or movies, you would know him. But this is my first time really digging into him and he is fantastic.
- [19:59]
Glen Weldon
So you weren't on the Scorch Trials, huh? You didn't?
- [20:02]
Aisha Harris
Oh no, sorry. I was not. Well, well, we want to know what you think about Twin List. Find us on Facebook@facebook.com PCHHH and on Letterboxd@Letterboxd.com NPRpopculture we'll have a link to that in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show. Gene Demby, Glen Weldon, thanks so much for being here.
- [20:23]
Gene Demby
Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you.
- [20:25]
Aisha Harris
And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour plus is a great way to support our show and public radio. And you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor free. So please go find out more at plus.NPR.org happyar or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Janae Morris and Mike Katsip and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello. Come in. Provides our theme music and thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from npr. I'm Aisha Harris and we'll see you all next time.
- [20:57]
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