Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 2 ratings
Ethan and Sophie are a married couple on the brink of separation when, at the urging of their therapist, they decide to salvage their relationship by escaping to a beautiful vacation house for the weekend.
The One I Love is a genuinely inventive piece of magic realism that uses its central high-concept premise — a couple encountering idealized doppelgangers of each other — to probe questions of attraction, authenticity, and the fantasy vs. reality of partnership. Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss deliver committed, nuanced performances that anchor the increasingly strange material in recognizable emotional truth; their chemistry and ability to play subtle distinctions between 'real' and 'duplicate' versions of themselves is impressive. The film's novelty is its strongest suit: it's a truly singular genre-blending conception that few films attempt or execute with this kind of restraint and wit. Cinematography is functional but unremarkable — the vacation-house setting is pleasant, but the film makes no distinctive visual choices. The plot, while clever, does strain somewhat under the weight of its own conceits as it progresses, and the ending, while thematically consistent, leaves some viewers cold with its ambiguity — provocative rather than fully satisfying.