A deserved hit on VOD, The One I Love is sci-fi with a decidedly human bent; married couple Ethan and Sophie (Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss) are recommended by friends to spend a weekend at a holiday home to rekindle their relationship. Charlie McDowell’s film captures their sense of underlying ennui before delivering a twist; there is another version of Ethan and Sophie already at the house, and they’re somehow a better version of the couple. Ethan and Sophie are individually seduced by their better partners, and find themselves wrestling with their own sense of identity as a direct consequence. While the conspiracy elements are unsatisfyingly developed, The One I Love has a darkly whimsical tone, and provides an imaginative route into what happens when relationships start to fall apart; as with Gone Girl, the notion of a better self gets something of a kicking.
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