Twinless: Dylan O'Brien's Star-Making Turn in a Twisted Grief Comedy

James Sweeney's Twinless shouldn't work. It's a comedy about grief, a bromance about deception, a thriller about playing The Sims. It juggles tones like chainsaws, constantly threatening to slice its own fingers off. But somehow, miraculously, it's one of the most exciting films at Sundance – a movie so confidently unhinged that it won both the Audience Award and the performance prize for Dylan O'Brien.

O'Brien plays twins Rocky and Roman with such distinction you forget it's the same actor. When Rocky dies in the opening car crash, Roman joins a twin bereavement support group where he meets Dennis (Sweeney), whose own twin loss hides darker secrets. What starts as a quirky grief comedy morphs into something far stranger – a psychosexual thriller about identity, obsession, and the lies we tell ourselves to survive loss.

Sweeney, who wrote, directed, and stars, has created something genuinely original here. His script takes massive swings that shouldn't land but do, aided by his willingness to let scenes breathe into uncomfortable spaces. The humor is pitch-black – there's a subplot involving The Sims that's both hilarious and deeply disturbing – but it never undercuts the genuine emotion at the film's core.

Lauren Graham shows up as Roman's mother, delivering a performance that reminded everyone she's capable of so much more than we usually ask of her. The entire cast seems energized by the material's audacity, particularly O'Brien, who uses his dual role to explore masculinity, sexuality, and grief with a fearlessness that should launch him into a new career phase.

The film's secret weapon is its refusal to judge its characters, even as they make increasingly unforgivable choices. Like the best dramedies, it understands that humans are capable of being simultaneously awful and sympathetic, hilarious and heartbreaking. The third act goes places you won't see coming, though it struggles slightly with the landing.

This is the kind of movie Sundance exists to discover – genuinely independent, creatively bold, and impossible to imagine existing within the studio system. When graphic clips leaked online of O'Brien's gay sex scenes, it only added to the film's mystique. Twinless is messy, problematic, and absolutely essential viewing.