Pop Culture Happy Hour - Watch This: Twinless

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney star as unlikely friends in the new movie Twinless. They meet in a support group for people who have lost their twin and form an interesting bond, but there’s a lot they don’t know about each other. Directed and written by Sweeney, the film has a wry sensibility, great chemistry, and dares to take some dark turns you probably won’t see coming.Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureTo access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Okay, before we get to the show, these days a lot of listeners are asking how they can support the show. And there's a super easy, totally free thing you can do. It takes literally two minutes. Go into the podcast app where you're listening right now and rate and review this show. That's it. Doing that helps other people find Pop Quintry Happy Hour, and that helps keep us going. Thanks so much. Twinless is about an unlikely duo, a personable bro who's not the brightest tool in the shed,

and a prickly, often condescending gay man. When they meet in a support group for people who have lost their twin, a very interesting bond is formed. The movie's got a wry, sensibility, great chemistry, and it dares to take some dark turns you probably won't see coming. I'm Glenn Weldon. And I'm Aisha Harris, and today we're talking about twin lists on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

Joining us today is one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast, Gene Demby. Hey, Gene, welcome back. What's good, y'all? Oh, my God, so glad to be here. Great to have you. Also, I'm not sure if listeners know, but you yourself are a twin. I am a twin, but not the kind of twin in this movie. Well, yes, but I'm very excited to hear your thoughts on that.

But first, you know, twinless is written, directed by and stars James Sweeney as Dennis, a moody loner whose twin brother has passed. He connects with Roman, a dultish but vulnerable guy who's also lost his twin brother. Romans played by Dylan O'Brien. Now, despite having little in common besides a deceased sibling, they grow close. and lend one another some emotional support in dealing with their grief. But, and this is a pretty big butt, there's a lot they don't know about each other. And that's all I'm going to say about that for now.

Twinless is in theaters now. Gene, I'm going to start with you. Give it to us. How do we feel about this movie? I love this movie. And it was so stressful to watch. I watched it. And then my wife, who had been sleeping, like, woke up.

And she was like, hey, I want to watch this with you. And I was like, I will absolutely watch this again with you right now. And I watched it again with her and saw her sink into the couch like, oh, my God. Like, watch the stress. And I was like, I know you have to experience this too. I've never seen James Sweeney any of his work before. Like, whatever he does, henceforth, I'm all on board with that. This movie is, like, really intense.

And it's both like a small character movie, but also, like, it's so intense. I was like, oh, this is going to turn into, like, a thriller or, like, an unnerving twist to happen. Because there were a lot of unnerving twist, but I thought, like, somebody was, there was going to be bloodshed at some point. Yeah. And so the whole time I watched this movie, like the coil is sort of rapping tighter and tighter. And yet, and this is so wild about it, it's like legitimately laugh out loud funny, right? Yeah. Like the guy who plays Roman and Rocky, his twin, I mean this in the best way.

I mean, I like, no shade. He's very good at playing an idiot. Yes. No, that's so true. Yeah. So I've been like dying to chopping up with somebody, especially y'all about this just because it's a movie that, like, invites so much discussion. Yes. I think it's important to stress.

as stressful as this movie is, it is also comedy. So I'm glad you ended up that, Gene. But Glenn, yes, tell me, how are we feeling about this? Oh, I'm so glad that Gene is on the panel today because I think, A, because I miss you. Oh, thank you. Likewise. Like that. B, because I think between the two of us, I think we got this movie covered.

Gene is a twin. I'm a gay man who spent most of my early 20s hurling myself at straight men who tended to say to me at some point, I just don't think about you like that, bro. So I think we got it covered. I love this film on its own, and especially as the second film from James Sweeney. I saw his first film, which is called Straight Up, a while back. And I remember thinking, this is a great first film, but I cannot wait to see his next one. Because he also wrote and directed straight up.

He also starred in it. He played a gay man who started to question his identity because he found himself drawn romantically to a woman. It was funny. It was sweet, but not too sweet, which is important to me. It was also poking at some ideas that don't get explored in a sympathetic way about identity. The only thing I noticed about that first film is that you could hear the screenplay, if that makes sense. Like the dialogue was very witty and very crisp, but the characters sometimes came off as mouthpieces. The rhythms were just a bit too arch, a little too theater, a little too sitcomy, a little too, like, set up punchline.

He has settled in with this movie. He's created characters who say funny things. He has not come up with funny things and then created characters to say them. These are very natural rhythms. These characters are given room to deepen and complicate. and that's most seen in the character of Marcy who becomes Roman's girlfriend. Oh, my gosh. She's played by Ashling Franchosi.

And she is a broad comic character when we first meet her. So it's clear we're seeing her through the James Sweeney character's eyes, Dennis's eyes. But the script and the actor allow her to grow and deepen and find other registers to play. And she becomes a very important part of the movie. This is a very enjoyable film. Yeah. You've just convinced me to go back and watch straight up. I also really love this movie.

And while I am neither a gay man nor a twin, I absolutely jibed with James Sweeney's whole energy and vibe and his comedic sensibilities. Like, Glenn, that point you made about it, like him being able to tap into a sweetness that is never too sweet is absolutely true here because his character, Dennis, in this film, you know, he is kind of a condescending,

like, I think I'm better than you, sort of. He has that vibe. But he softens over time through his relationship with Roman. And being able to play an idiot as Dylan O'Brien does, it's like playing drunk, right? Like, it's hard to do. And so when you can do it well, oh, my goodness, it works so well. Hey, how do you know if lemons are right? Yellow?

Unriped lemons are green. So why do they got so many unripe ones now? Those are lions. He is a, quote-unquote, adult or an idiot, but he also, like, is aware. that he is not very smart. There's such a great dynamic between the two of these characters because at one point he's like,

look, I know that I'm not very smart, but like, please treat me like a human being. Can you not laugh at me? I know I'm not like the brightest tool in the shed, but I don't appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, of course. I'm sorry. You know, if I get something wrong, tell me, because then I can know better.

Would now be a good time to point out I think you meant to say sharpest tool in the shed? I love that scene. That, like, very, line between being kind of dumb, but also his ability to be vulnerable in a way that Dennis can't. It's so rare to see that. Absolutely. Yeah, this is, this is just a fun movie. But I also feel as though we can't really talk about this movie beyond surface level without getting into, there's a pretty big twist. I will say that. That comes early on in the movie. And so we're

going to get into that. We're going to get into some major spoilers. So just giving you a warning. Now, here's the gist. Dennis is not, in fact, a twin, it is revealed. Even worse, oh, God, this is where I started really sinking into my seat while watching this. Even worse, he's indirectly responsible for the death of Roman's twin Rocky. Dennis and Rocky had a one-night stand and Dennis became upset when Rocky didn't follow up with him afterward. Honestly, relatable. I've been there. He angrily confronts Rocky on the street and then Rocky was struck and killed by. by a car because he stepped off the sidewalk without looking both ways. And now, Dennis is maybe, I guess, trying to absolve his guilt by befriending Roman. And also it's birth noting that Roman is in town. He's there because he's helping to settle up Rocky's loose ends. He never had the opportunity to know Rocky's, like, real life. So he has no idea that Dennis is who he is.

Wow. And this is revealed like 20 minutes in. I could see a movie where you don't find this out until the third act. And it would feel very much. manipulative. That's not what happens here. Is that the key or is that the secret sauce to this working? Well, see, as soon as that revelation happens, the movie changes. The movie becomes a thriller, but kind of an emotional thriller, right? It becomes a ticking time bomb because there's narrative suspense all of a sudden because we know the truth is going to come out. We've seen movies before. And the movie's job at that point is to raise the stakes and show us just how close these two men are becoming, show us, make us feel what we know is going to be lost. And I think it does that really smartly. by letting Marcy become a real sympathetic, rounded character. I think that the fact that she's the vector by which this friendship lives or dies is a really smart thing that this movie does.

Yeah. Because Marcy has like sort of a longitudinar relationship with Dennis, right? She's known him for a long time. And so she's starting to put together like, hey, you don't have a twin brother. Like she starts to like put the pieces together. The scene in which Rocky is killed, my wife, when we watch movies together, she yells. Like she yells when exciting, dramatic things happen. And so because I had just seen it, like literally just before she sat down and watched it, I looked at her.

I was like, here we go. Here comes it. And she yells so loud. It's like, oh, my God, our baby's asleep, please. Once it's revealed that Dennis has this relationship with Rocky and he was like, you know, a little pressed, right? Like after there one night stand, he was sort of like, you can see there's this really funny moment he's like trying to like, he's asking people who are sort of disinterested. Like, should I reach out to Rocky? And like he's obviously fishing for someone to take him.

tell him the thing that he wants to hear, which is like, yes. Yeah. Oh, man, my wife kept saying, this dude loves to fly close to the sun. Like, Dennis keeps the closer he gets to Roman, the more he becomes kind of ensconced in parts of Rocky's world. Yeah. It's just looming over the last, what, like, hour and 20 minutes of the movie. Mm-hmm. And their friendship is so, like, legitimately beautiful to watch, right?

Like, they look out for each other. They seem to really enjoy each other's company. It's, like, very, like, unfussy companions. They are like naturally in sync, even though, you know, and I think it's like one of the things in the movies, like they, you would not necessarily assume that these two people would be friends? And I don't want to run too much, but like they sort of question like, will we be friends had we, yeah, had the universal line a different way? And it's like, oh, it's just so heartbreaking. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What I also find interesting about this is that like, Dennis is clearly unhinged in every way possible. And there's a movie here where it becomes like any other obsession. movie and someone gets murdered or the very least there's like a big showdown or something like that. And what I find interesting is that like Dennis is not necessarily interested in Roman sexually, or at least I don't get that sense. It's more like he's both has a sense of guilt. Yes, he's attracted to him because he looks. It looks exactly like this dude he was like, fetched with you. And we also learn interestingly that he has this like weird thing about twins. Like he like wants to be a twin and he there's a great, great.

reference to it takes two, the classic Mary Kate and Ashley Olson movie. But I found it so interesting because you could also see it going in that direction of like this homoerotic tension, but it never really gets there. And I think all the ways it kind of avoids that and focuses in on this idea of these two very different people managing to be friends is what is so fascinating. Like all the turns that you can imagine this taking and how it subverts those in every way, which I think is what makes this so great. Yeah. We mentioned Dylan O'Brien playing Roman as, you know, kind of an adult, and he does it well. And he does it by saying something like, I'm not the brightest tool in the shed. So folks, if you heard that in Aisha's intro and you had your emails already. No, don't. That's from the movie. It's a line from the movie. So settle down.

But he also briefly plays the dead twin Rocky in flashbacks. And I got to say, the first time we meet Rocky, I, a gay man who's seen gay characters played by straight actors forever, I was like, oh, he's making choices. Like, does Glad have a hotline? And do I need to call it? Because that is a lot. At one point, we see him coming out of his apartment. The first line out of his mouth is drama, and I'm like, can we not? This is a hate crime.

But then I remember how often I say drama to my friends, and I will continue to say it. So at that point, I kind of relaxed a bit because, like, let he use without sin, cast the first Sharon Stone. You know what I'm saying? But Rocky turns out to be a very familiar type, a very hot gay, who just is completely comfortable in his skin. And it's important for us to see him like that and for him to be that. So we can then see how comparatively stunted and lost Roman is. How much Rocky's departure. And call it for what it is, abandonment, really, how much that cost him.

And I think that was a really important note for the movie to hit. The movies, what doesn't imply it sort of says I write that, like, part of the reason the two of them, Rocky and Roman, who were apparently incredibly close when they're younger, part of the reason they were strange was when Rocky came out to Roman. Roman responded horribly. And when his brother basically left, like, clearly, I guess the implications is he went to someplace where he could be safer or more, you know, fine community. Roman felt abandoned, you know, and he sort of carried this guilt like I drove away this person who I love more than anybody. Glenn, you were saying that, like, you can see how comparatively stunted Roman is relative to Rocky. But also, like, that's clearly why Dennis was drawn to him, too, like, that Rocky was so comfortable in his own skin. And Dennis is sort of very charming, but, like, very, you know, but very dorky.

And so, like, you could see why these two people who are, like, searching for both companionship and sort of, and searching for a kind of confidence would feel like the, like, the loss of this person in theosicular. Yeah, yeah. Gene, I don't want to pry, but I am curious about, like, the twin perspective. I would love to hear a little bit more about how that played for you as a twin. Well, I should say I'm a fraternalist ones, so my sister and I, like, there was the gender stuff. You know, so, like, obviously, we were really, really close and we were younger. We always had a playmate who was the same age, you know, we played with each other's toys.

Twin years, you sort of stuff that are, like, going different directions. But, like, you know, there is a sense of, and I think this is probably true of all siblings who are close in age, but that sense of, like, you know, you live in a microculture of your house that you grow up in, right? And so you have this person who, you grow up with the same parent. Like sometimes when you have up a sibling and the sibling is far apart enough in age, like those parents have different sort of like capacities or whatever. But like when you are a twin, you have a person who like very, very instinctually understands what is like to have the upbringing you had, like, in a way that no one else had, right? Like in this movie, you see that Roman has a really testy relationship with his mom who was played by Lauren Graham, Lorlai Gilmore. I was very curious about like, what was Rocky's relationship like to this?

Like was it one of those things like I feel abandoned in part because like you left. me to deal with this person who I don't get along with, right, by myself, you know. But also just like this very sweet story that Rocky tells about his brother about this injury he had when he was young and how his brother didn't want him to go through it alone. And so, like, basically made it so that he had the same injury that kind of like you have a built-in best friend is like a really, really powerful thing. You just have someone you don't have to explain everything to, you know? Yeah, yeah.

I had never really thought about that perspective before about having the same parent in the same moments because I grew up in the household where I, there were several years between my sister and I. And then I have two younger sisters who were decades younger than me. And I had, like, my parents when we didn't have a lot of money and then we have a little bit more money by the time my second sibling came in. So, like, that is such a real thing. And I love the way Lauren Grant has a small role in this movie. Those moments when she's with Roman on screen just feel so, I can feel it. I can understand it so well. And there's love there, but also there's so much fraughtness there.

And if you'd seen straight up, you would have noticed how many Gilmore Girls jokes there are in that movie. So it's kind of fun. It's great to see Lauren Graham here. Easter egg. I'm sure it was quite the boon for him to get her. He's like, yes, this is my dream. I just want to really briefly talk about the ending without revealing the ending. It's perfect.

And in a movie like this, it's not about the bomb going off. We know the bomb's going to go off. We're waiting for it. What's important about a movie? like this is what happens after. You have to nail it because that's the thing we don't know how it's going to do. And I would, this thing would have had five minutes to go. And I thought, how is he going to land this plane? Because, you know, all of a sudden I realized, oh, we're in the movie's last scene. This is the last beat, the last moment. It has to pay for itself.

And it so does in a quiet, perfect way that doesn't feel overdetermined, that doesn't feel, you know, workshopped, that doesn't feel clever and sweaty. It just feels natural. And I just love that choice that the movie makes at the end there. Absolutely. A thousand percent. You know, not to be like, to like, gild a little bit too much. But like, you know, there's all these things about sort of like the crisis in male friendships. And I just think like a real thing. But like this is a movie I would like a lot of like straight dudes who are sort of alienated. Because it's like such a smart movie about there's a scene right towards the end that when Roman, he doesn't have anything to do when his girlfriend is otherwise engaged.

Right. And just I get thinking about all those pieces about like, hey man, I need my husband, my boyfriend, whoever to like have someone to talk to that is not me. You know, like, um, and it's like a very real thing that I think a lot of dudes will recognize themselves and a lot of women will like, yeah, like, yes, this is what I'm trying to tell you about. I need you to go out in the world and have an emotional intimate community that's not just me doing all of that stuff. Yeah. I mean, I don't have anything to add, except I completely agree with both of you. And I think this movie is very good at just kind of planting little seeds coming back to them, but not in a like, I'm going to make sure you know that I'm coming back to it. It's just natural.

I hope to see more from James Sweeney and from Dylan O'Brien because, again, my goodness, so fantastic. I know he was, you know, if you watched certain shows or movies, you would know him. But this was my first time really digging into him and he is fantastic. You weren't on the scorch trials, huh? Oh, no. Sorry. I was not. Well, we want to know what you think about twin lists.

Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCH and on Letterbox at letterbox.com. slash NPR Pop Culture. We'll have a link to that in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show, Gene Demby, Glenn Weldon. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support

our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.npr.org slash Happy Hour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Jenae Morris, and Mike Katziv, and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. Hello, come in provides our theme music, and thank you for listening to Pop Poetry Haportar from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all next time.