Rating: R | Runtime: 100 minutes
Release Date: September 5th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Roadside Attractions
Director(s): James Sweeney
Writer(s): James Sweeney

I don’t know how to be here without you.

We populate multiple spheres of existences with varying identities specific to each. So, when Roman (Dylan O’Brien) asks Dennis (James Sweeney) if he thinks they’d be friends had they met under different circumstances, we understand the answer is “No” regardless of whether they’ll admit it. Because they know it too as completely different people from disparate worlds—conditions that rarely allow two such people to meet let alone with the prospect of connection. Context matters. Vulnerability matters. It’s honestly why so many of us feel alone.

Sweeney’s Twinless (he also writes and directs) extensively deals with this reality whether it’s Dennis assuming the receptionist at his work (Aisling Franciosi’s Marcie) is a loser (despite trying to be his friend), their co-worker (Susan Park’s Sage) constantly feeling violated whenever anyone remotely pays attention and treats her like a human being rather than a robot compartmentalizing personal and professional lives, or Roman uncharacteristically opening up to strangers at a group therapy meeting for those who’ve lost their twins.

That’s where he meets Dennis. A place where the barriers of Roman’s very cishet life are down enough for a gay man to get close enough to be seen as more than a label. Curiosity breaks the ice. Roman’s twin Rocky was gay; Dennis’s twin Dean was straight. It’s an intriguing commonality that’s able to bind their shared humanity. The kind of “this guy gets it” moment all friendships are based upon. And it’s solely due to context forcing them out of their comfort zones to ensure their defenses don’t prevent a potential spark they’d usually ignore.

The film is also heavily interested in subjectivity’s inherent duality. Roman thinks his brother was the favorite twin for many reasons—none of which are objective. Rocky was the popular and smart one. The one who traveled and lived life to the fullest. But it wasn’t because of those things. If anything, it was due to Roman’s inability to get out of his own way thanks to a volatile temper that kept everyone at arm’s length. Because Roman was the good one in Rocky’s mind. The protector. The one who fell victim to always feeling too much.

It’s true for cause and effect as well. Is an unforgivable lie okay if it helps build something beautiful? Is Marcie so happy because she’s an oblivious extrovert who befriends every stranger she passes or because she knows her boundaries and will never sacrifice that happiness by letting those strangers exploit it? Is a desperate person publicly holding someone to account the reason the latter died when attempting to comply or is it the latter’s fault for pushing the former to chase them in the first place? Are our myriad connections merely coincidence?

Chicken, meet egg. Roman, meet Dennis. Because, while you may believe Twinless is Roman’s journey for the first twenty minutes of its runtime, a delayed opening credits sequence delivers a pivot point of perspective that places most of what follows in Dennis’s shoes. I won’t tell you why or how considering the revelation is a big piece of this puzzle and deserves to be experienced on its own. Just know that it flips everything we’ve seen upside down. Not the result, but the motives. Roman and Dennis becoming best friends is real. It’s simply not fated to last.

And we must wonder if everything is literally upside down considering there are many aspects that alter in the process. Yes, it could just be a byproduct of us knowing more than we knew at the beginning, but perhaps it’s also that perspective shift. The opening is from Roman’s experience and therefore he comes off as stoic and temperamental. After the pivot it’s from Dennis’s view so Roman suddenly feels more gregarious while Dennis gradually becomes a third wheel. Their opinions of themselves are never not harsh.

What’s great about Sweeney’s script, though, is that he’s unafraid to present that truth as being necessary. Roman eventually reveals the events leading to his fractured relationship with Rocky (via an unforgettable scene of emotion that O’Brien knocks out of the park) and they are reason enough to hate himself. We know the lie Dennis is struggling to keep intact—one that’s big enough and unforgivable enough to render his self-loathing appropriate. Cue Marcie’s line, “Deservedness is not a requisite for forgiveness.”

That’s ultimately the key message. The distance between Roman and Rocky based on assumptions because the former didn’t feel he deserved his brother’s love despite needing it to survive. The inability for Dennis to admit the truth knowing it would probably force him back into the depressive loneliness fate plucked him from twice. We’ve all acted unforgivably in our lives and have surely been irrevocably changed by the fact we weren’t absolved, but that doesn’t mean we should give up. Twinless doesn’t judge its characters. It honors their flaws.

This obviously means the subject matter is dark and the violence (both physical and emotional) brutal, but Sweeney doesn’t let that stop him from also making the film very funny and sweet in those moments where life slows down to become simple interactions between two people unaware of the reasons they should be enraged. I love Dennis’s snark, Marcie’s genuine joie de vivre, and Roman’s awareness of his shortcomings and desire to be corrected rather than laughed at. In a perfect world, these three are inseparable for life. Perfect worlds don’t exist.

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Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney in TWINLESS; courtesy of Roadside Attractions.