Opening tomorrow, The One I Love is one of the year’s most original stories – a romance, dark comedy and sci-fi fable rolled into one successful movie. Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss play a couple in that place in their relationship where quirks have become annoying instead of endearing, some trust issues have emerged and the two are just generally misfiring. Their couples therapist recommends a weekend at an idyllic, isolated vacation cottage, which also has a second (presumably unoccupied) guest house. The beautiful setting is enhanced by a bottle of wine and a reefer, and the desired rekindling of romance and intimacy occurs. So everything goes as we would expect for this first nine minutes of the movie, and then – WOW – a major plot development that involves the guest house.
As soon as one of the characters explicitly references TV’s The Twilight Zone, the story becomes what would have been a perfect episode in that Rod Steiger series. Screenwriter Justin Lader pulls off a What’s Gonna Happen Next? story that has its moments of creepy thriller and madcap comedy. But, at its heart, the story explores these questions: what is it about our partners that keeps us in or drives us out of a relationship? How do we stay in love with someone who has changed from who we fell in love with? Or who hasn’t become the person we had projected? The One I Love is only 91 minutes, so the tension and the thoughtfulness can slowly build while keeping us on the edges of our seats.
Moss and Duplass are simply remarkable here – these are two great performances.
MINOR SPOILER ALERT: Both Duplass and Moss play other characters in this movie – and they excel at creating subtle differences in the characters that are revealing, thought-provoking and scary.