Who knew that 2010s white boy teen drama favourite Dylan O’Brien would next captivate a fresh audience in a queer dark comedy? It’s an inevitable turn, perhaps, for the evidently talented actor turning to more nuanced roles, largely in independent films. It’s hard to describe his role in James Sweeney’s sophomore feature Twinless (2025), which enjoyed its world premiere Sundance’s US Dramatic Competition, without fully giving away the plot and its embedded twists. However, what can be presented is that O’Brien plays two twins, Roman, who is straight and grieving the death of his moustachioed gay twin, Rocky. Last year, we also saw him in Esteban Arango’s Ponyboi, which also made its world premiere at 2024 Sundance.
The performer also served as executive producer for Twinless, which collected the Audience Award for its section as well as a Special Jury Award for Acting for O’Brien. It begins to look like an impressive independent group project as the film is not only written and directed by Sweeney but also stars him. Alaska-born-and-raised Sweeney first came onto the scene with his first feature Straight Up (2019)—which he also wrote, directed, and starred in—that premiered at Outfest Los Angeles and moved next to NewFest, the New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival. During the festival, Twinless suffered from an influx of popularity over graphic sex scenes between characters played by O’Brien and Sweeney. This led to a Twitter joke that Sweeney “directed himself into bottoming for O’Brien”—and ultimately the removal of the film from online platforms. (But unlike the featured still implies, there is no The Sims-related content. It’s just a Halloween costume; sorry folks.)
Sweeney plays Dennis, a gay man mourning his twin, who then runs into Roman at a twin bereavement support group (do these actually exist?), himself mourning Rocky. Roman’s intellect is perhaps not his strong suit, let’s say, but Dennis is still interested in what he has to say. The film then very cleverly moves back in time to discover the secrets that lie beneath the newfound friendship between the two men. It will be curious to see how the film holds up on a second watch, given that part of the work’s allure is the sense of intrigue generated by the early film reveal that reframes the lead characters and the nature of their relationships. However, Twinless is bound to still stand via Sweeney’s very bold and crass sense of humour, with some jokes that are almost too uncomfortable.
O’Brien plays Rocky with a slight swagger in his hips, a bit more exuberant in his gesticulations than Roman. These are character decisions that could be seen as a gay stereotype or an easy way out to distinguish between playing a straight character and a queer one. However, it is ultimately a set of choices that work because these aspects are not the source of jokes; in fact, it is Rocky who is depicted as incredibly bright and well-read, clearly the favourite of the twins’ mother (Lauren Graham). On the flip side, Sweeney’s Dennis is a sort of relatable and nervous, wise-cracking wreckdriven by grief and something that could be recognised as “queer obsession”: feeling so lonely out in the world that one clings to a symbol of one’s queerness, whether that is a person or thing, without self-awareness of its implications. This character trait is what will likely ring most true to many queer viewers and where Sweeney completely hits the nail on the head.
Twinless doesn’t have the most satisfying of wrap-ups, but the filmmaker develops his web of relationships enough to keep the audience thinking about what could happen next by the time the last moments roll around. Based on the half implausibility (or perhaps, narrative flexibility) of its story, some even more ridiculous moments (although the over-the-top sexual moments do somewhat count) could have driven the film further to the edge. But Twinless very clearly shows Sweeney’s creativity, particularly as a writer and director, in cooking up something unique while still diving deep into topics of grief, obsession, loneliness, and friendship from a queer lens.
