It's interesting - and maybe a little TOO in-depth, just perhaps - looking at the message board for this movie on IMDb. There's all sorts of theories that are flying about this way and that, what this means, who did what to whom, is there any meaning in an 'Oragnutang', things like that. What the filmmaker Charlie McDowell and writer Justin Lader have done is create a work that can bring a lot of different interpretations, that's what's so spectacular bout it. It's a relationship comedy-drama, but it has the structure of something like a Luis Bunuel movie (Exterminating Angel) - a couple comes to a retreat to try to work out their issues and deal with past pain, in part from Ethan, thanks to the advice of a therapist - how they came to him is a bigger question never addressed, but whatever), and whenever they go into a guest house one of them meets a 'version' of the significant other who is, in their own certain way, perfect. Or ideal, or something that makes them... happy, I suppose.
The One I Love has only two characters, though one could/should say there are four. However you want to look at what's happening here - a science fiction experiment, a mind-control device, brain manipulation, or just a simple narrative trick that one would probably never question if it were in a novel instead of a movie - as far as the character dynamics go. It's an endlessly clever but emotionally involving story of mind-games; are Ethan and Sophie, the new ones, really ALL good for the 'real' Ethan and Sophie? How do they know all of these things about one another? Perhaps they're projections or part of the subconscious mind. No matter. What matters is how the characters go from scene to scene, being happier - or not, as happens to Ethan - and the ups and downs when, finally, the 'New' Ethan and Sophie reveal themselves without tricks to the 'Real' Ethan and Sophie as... Ethan and Sophie you guys!
There is confusing stuff here. I thought I could watch the movie sort of half-asleep, and not only did that not work, the movie really kicked my head up into gear to get into the mix of it. I also thought it being Mark Duplass - he serves too as producer with brother Jay - it would be quite funny, but less... heady, perhaps? What really cements the film is that whether it's Real or Not-Real Ethan, or Real or Not-Real Sophie, Duplass and especially Elizabeth Moss make them funny, awkward, sad, angry, sensual, crazy, scared, weird and angry again all in natural measure. The wonderful thing about most of the film, until a certain point perhaps (though it's gradual, not a sudden turn for the worse or anything), it's organically developing. When the characters enter their 'fantasy' space - and like Bunuel they can't seem to get out when they may want to the most - they may be changing for the better... or worse.
So for all of the gimmicks of the story it has to work with the characters and the actors, whether one is 'real' one scene and then 'fake' the next, and who can tell outside of the glasses (hey, he's like Clark Kent, non?) The movie works best, and is riveting in a kind of harrowingly comic way, when the husband and wife are getting used to what they see as a "safe' environment to play out their other's better qualities, as if it's a 'tag-you're-it' thing, and we get to see how one views the other and one tries to be more or less comfortable. In other words, it's just a lot of fun outside of the obvious psychological implications. Where it gets a bit fuzzy is when the 'plot' kind of kicks in a bit more, or it felt that way for me, in the third act when the 'Fakes' and their actual origins are revealed (more or less, some of it remains obscure, which is maybe for the best for the sake of the sanity of the piece), and it kind of falls apart.
And yet, the end scene brought me back again, so it's a strange thing. The whole movie features two actors, both with magnetic, awesome chemistry, getting to play a wide swath of emotions, albeit in how the particular 'version' goes from moment to moment (not unlike earlier this year with Eisenberg in The Double). It's a surreal farce that resonates because it asks what a lot of the great movies about marriage ask: who is this person I am with, and can I continue to be with them the same way? For a while, it's one of those marvelous, original comedies of the past few years, and should be seen on VoD. 8.5/10
