The One I Love

A couples therapist suggests that Ethan and Sophie, whose marriage is in trouble, spend a weekend at a house. The house is beautiful and quiet and there is a guest cottage in the garden. Then each of them meets another version of their own spouse in that cottage: the same face, the same voice, but more attentive, more cheerful, easier. The film runs the idea without explaining it, asking not what this is but what two people will do with it. Ethan tries to manage it by setting rules; Sophie would rather stay with the version she prefers. So the matter is not supernatural: neither wants their spouse but the shape they expect of them. Charlie McDowell's first film, scripted by Justin Lader, with a good deal of the dialogue improvised. Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss play both versions of their characters; what makes the two distinguishable is entirely performance. The budget was very small and it takes place almost entirely on one property. A good discovery for anyone who likes small, single-idea genre films and relationship drama. For a viewer wanting explanation, the film supplies an answer in its last section, and that answer falls below the delicacy of the first half.