Dead ringer, the creepy colloquial, takes on the troublesome literal in this strange story of doppelganger deja vu.
Five years after being widowed, Nikki spies a guy who is the spitting image of her deceased spouse. She stalks him and discovers that he is an artist named Tom. The similarities with her dear departed are not just facial, the eyes, the sense of humour, and the artistic bent are all uncannily acute.
Still grieving she sees Tom as a reincarnation and forces an introduction, hiring him to teach her to paint. Off her head but on his face, she begins an affair, not disclosing the remarkable visage verisimilitude to the unsuspecting sap.
A bizarre instalment in the bed trick stakes where failure to fess up creates the tension and conflict, the film has a car wreck quality – you don’t want to gawk, but… and when the prang involves two classic chassis – Annette Bening and Ed Harris – then the rubber necking is somewhat exonerated.
Directed by Ari Posen and photographed by Antonio Riestra, the picture is gorgeous to look at with a production design by Jeannine Oppewall, four time Academy Award nominee and art director of L.A. Confidential and Catch Mr If You Can to name a few.
The visual beauty of the film amplifies the artistic sensibilities of the two lead characters who are draped in wardrobe from Oscar nominated costume designer, Judianna Makovsky.
All this intelligent design is at loggerheads with an illogical scenario, – I guess what it’s alluding to is grief distorts the pursuit of happiness. We first see Nikki framed in a large space, as if she is in a vacuum. It is illustrative of the big space her husband, Garrett, has left, and it needs to be filled or it will swallow her.
Instead she wallows in a wilful wish fulfilment of resurrected romance that dooms it from the get go.
Two other plus factors in the film are the casting of Robin Williams as Nikki’s lovelorn neighbour and Jess Weixler as Nikki’s nonplussed daughter who freaks seeing her father’s familiar features on another man.
Saddled with a preposterous plot, the film is better than it should be and perversely not as good as it could have been – a perplexing conundrum, a feature film face-off.