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★★½☆☆
18 November 2018
A movie review of JONATHAN a.k.a. DUPLICATE. |
“I’m not sure what’s going on. I’ve been feeling a little tired lately. Have you?” Jonathan (Ansel Elgort)
JONATHAN, also known as DUPLICATE, are two bland titles reflecting a lacklustre experience. This is not particularly a compliment, but JONATHAN feels like a Drake Doremus movie (e.g. ZOE (2018), EQUALS (2015)): High-concept sci-fi tied to drab character navel-gazing and banal romantic melodrama. The notion here: Twin brothers existing in one body.
Ansel Elgort plays Jonathan/John. Like Superman/Clark Kent, they have slightly different haircuts to differentiate. One buttoned down, one wilder. Jonathan is a draftsman who has designs on being a lauded architect. John flits from job to job. But the latter gets the raw deal perhaps, existing only at night. They each get four hours of sleep. Two separate beds to help delineate. They clunkily represent responsibility vs freedom. It is a simplistic reflection of people torn between the different sides of themselves. IDENTITY (2003), James Mangold’s best film, is far more engaging.
JONATHAN, also known as DUPLICATE, are two bland titles reflecting a lacklustre experience. This is not particularly a compliment, but JONATHAN feels like a Drake Doremus movie (e.g. ZOE (2018), EQUALS (2015)): High-concept sci-fi tied to drab character navel-gazing and banal romantic melodrama. The notion here: Twin brothers existing in one body.
Ansel Elgort plays Jonathan/John. Like Superman/Clark Kent, they have slightly different haircuts to differentiate. One buttoned down, one wilder. Jonathan is a draftsman who has designs on being a lauded architect. John flits from job to job. But the latter gets the raw deal perhaps, existing only at night. They each get four hours of sleep. Two separate beds to help delineate. They clunkily represent responsibility vs freedom. It is a simplistic reflection of people torn between the different sides of themselves. IDENTITY (2003), James Mangold’s best film, is far more engaging.
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There is sibling jealousy: Career success vs social success. As an analogy for acknowledging the disparate aspects of our personalities, the array of wants, perspectives, ambitions, etc., JONATHAN falls short.
Jonathan/John record themselves on camera as a means of knowing the other, and avoiding confusing any mutual acquaintances. (A similar precaution taken in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MONDAY (2017)). There is friendship and camaraderie amid the secretive behaviour. We join them when brotherhood is tested to the max.
Jonathan hires a private detective, Ross Craine (Matt Bomer), because he thinks John is reneging on their agreement on how their lives are conducted. It’s bad enough having an inconsiderate roommate, but sharing the same body must be exasperating for the fastidious one. You’d want the other to not smoke, get sleep, eat organic, etc. John is a ladies man. Is he wearing protection? We see it from Jonathan’s perspective and not John’s. Maybe because the filmmakers know we more easily walk in the shoes of those who are not liberated?
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Some melodrama occurs when Jonathan falls for one of John’s exes, Elena (Suki Waterhouse), and doesn’t tell his brother. This is not ADAPTATION (2002) or even TWIN DRAGONS (1992) quality. Contrast Philip Pullman’s masterful trilogy, ‘His Dark Materials’, where the physical manifestation of a dæmon is an aspect of the self.
Jonathan/John’s condition is labelled “single body multi-consciousness”. This is such a seismic breakthrough surely, why is the discovery buried in a science magazine and not on the front page of every newspaper? What are the moral implications for Dr Mina Nariman (Patricia Clarkson) killing off a consciousness? (Clarkson is given a thankless part. Even her talent cannot inject the necessary gravitas.) Jonathan/John has a cranial implant. How is the tech being used? It is very STAR TREK, technology just thrown out there. (Remember that joke in THANK YOU FOR SMOKING (2005), “But it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue. 'Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever device.’”)
I kept expecting a plot twist where an elaborate ruse is revealed, à la SHUTTER ISLAND (2010). Or a hoax by Jonathan or Dr Nariman. Instead, the movie takes itself very seriously. It would have worked better as a play. The way the material is presented is uncinematic.
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