Sundance 2025: Twinless, Ricky, Jimpa | Festivals & Awards

I wish I could say Sundance Film Festival is in full swing, but it’s actually had a slow start. Two days in and there’s been very few standouts, which made the cobbling together of a dispatch a challenge. And I know, I know, this is the world’s smallest violin. In the end, we’re getting to opportunities to see potential gems far ahead of time. But one expects it to pick up soon, even if this assemblage of titles, where only one film provided some entertainment, aren’t exactly diamonds in the rough.

James Sweeney’s second directorial feature “Twinless” begins on an audaciously grim note. Roman’s gay twin brother Rocky recently has died tragically in a hit-and-run. At Rocky’s funeral, the violinist can barely hold a tune and everyone greets a stilted Roman (Dylan O’Brien) to tell him how much he looks like his brother. Lonely and grieving, Roman begins attending group therapy for siblings who’ve lost their twin. It’s there he meets Denis (Sweeney), who claims to have recently lost his twin too. Denis and Roman, two deeply isolated individuals, quickly form an unlikely codependent friendship. Together they grocery shop, workout, go to Seattle Kraken games and share their losses. 

I’m hesitant to say much else about the film’s plotting because a twist happens that’s probably left best for viewers to discover on their own, but let’s just say Denis is hiding quite a bit in the name of keeping his newfound bond with Roman alive. Mostly because, unbeknownst to Roman, Denis shared a passionate one-night stand with Rocky, and he sees Roman as the continuation of his potential soul-mate dream. 

Most of “Twinless” operates as a clever dark comedy, relying on finely tuned set-up to punchline structuring to provide levity. O’Brien plays Roman as a dim-witted Mark Wahlberg figure who often barely knows what “irreconcilable” means. The way he also plays Roman’s guilt for not understanding Rocky, for becoming estranged from his twin when Rocky moved away from their Idaho home to Portland, where much of the film takes place, is devastating. Denis, on other hand, is cutting and catty, even if Sweeney seems overwhelmed as an actor. 

The pair have a deliciously vicious yet thoughtfully loving friendship—often visualized through some smart depth of field tricks that lean into their doubleness—which comes under threat when Roman begins to fall for Denis’ chipper co-worker Marcie (Aisling Franciosi). The film’s expansion to a throuple causes it to dramatically and comedically trip over itself, reaching for a forced catharsis whose unbridled violence runs counter to the film’s initial deadpan levity. That stumble makes “Twinless” hard to forgive, but its strong premise and cunning quips also makes the good parts difficult to forget.  

By virtue of John Singleton’s “Boyz n the Hood,” the name Ricky is seared into the cinematic consciousness of Black film. In that film, Ricky (Morris Chestnut) is a promising football star whose college ambitions inspire everyone in his South Central Los Angeles neighborhood. Ricky’s potential future is protected by his friends and his doting mother. But no matter what safeguards are enacted nothing can shield these Black men from the harsh realities of gang violence and systemic racism.   

The writer/director Rashad Frett’s overwrought character study “Ricky,” isn’t a sequel to “Boyz n the Hood,” but it is Singleton-coded. In it, Ricardo “Ricky” Smith (Stephan James), a 30-year-old man recently released from prison after being incarcerated for 15 years, attempts to put his life back together on the outside. Unfortunately for Ricky, just because he’s free, it doesn’t mean he’s free. He still needs to check in with his parole officer—a no-nonsense motherly figure named Joanne (Sheryl Lee Ralph)—take prescribed medication, attend weekly counseling sessions, and maintain steady employment. The latter is especially challenging because most jobs would rather not hire a formerly incarcerated individual. “Ricky,” therefore, attempts to show all the systemic obstacles for the newly paroled. But it does so with such extreme force, its issues-focused desires overrun the film’s inherent emotion.

Like its protagonist, “Ricky” is an aesthetically and narratively frantic film. For the former, Frett and DP Sam Motamedi depend on crash zooms and shaky cams to translate the psychological angst Ricky feels. James, who gained fame in Barry Jenkins’ “If Beale Street Could Talk,” plays Ricky with the kind of tragic brokenness one might expect from the Fonny character in Jenkins’ film. James portrays Ricky as a mess of nerves and innocence. Because Ricky was incarcerated at 15-years-old, for a crime that Frett takes time to reveal, his younger brother James (Maliq Johnson) often feels like the older sibling. So not only must Ricky adapt to his new surroundings, while trying to please his demanding mother (Simbi Kali). He must also grow up.    

In that framing, there lurks a great, harrowing film. Regrettably, Frett doesn’t reach that destination. Though set in a tightknit Caribbean enclave, there is no sense of place. The Black women in his film are also stereotypes; and the film relies on illogical decisions to ratchet up the melodrama (such as a moment where James refuses to help his brother). A courtroom finale, which beats you over the head with its moralism, is also labored. In telegraphing all of its messages, not much of “Ricky” is delivered without a harsh thud.      

In Sophie Hyde’s “Jimpa,” Hannah (Olivia Colman), with her husband Jack and her 16-year-old non-binary child Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde) venture from Adelaide to Amsterdam to visit Hannah’s gay father Jim (John Lithgow)—an HIV positive gay advocate and professor. Jimpa (as Frances calls him) left Hannah and her family when she was 13-years old to find a freer life. It’s a wound Hannah hopes to heal by making a non-confrontational movie about her parents. Nevertheless, Frances sees their provocative grandfather as a hero and wants to move to Amsterdam to stay with him.

Before long, however, Frances and Jimpa find they have very different views of queerness. In one telling scene, Jim, while looking at old pro-gay buttons, bemoans the loss of subtext in movies in lieu of text. Frances argues against him. The tension plays like provocation. 

“Jimpa,” a far more sprawling endeavor than Hyde’s modest sex-positive two-hander “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” is all text. There is no nuance; no subtlety; no sense of interiority. The film relies on a forced lyricism to give its characters life, sending out bursts of turgid flashbacks meant to give haphazard backstories to individual figures. In a sense, you’re watching the film Hannah is thinking about making, the one where, fittingly, none of the actors she’s been screen testing understand why she’s making it. 

In “Jimpa” are some pulses that feel more like hiccups from Colman and Lithgow’s performances—two actors who are so deeply felt but are undermined by a script and aesthetic approach that spells out their every emotion. Through their grandfather, Frances has coming of age moments: their first sexual experience and their first heartbreak, and their learning of queer history from Jim’s catty friends.

While this film is about finding your identity, Hyde, unfortunately, doesn’t allow for that component to breathe without choking it with saccharine scenes of song and dance. Because the film is trying to show everything: Frances’ coming of age, Jim’s inability to understand the present queer generation, and Hannah’s fear of confrontation—it ends up showing us very little about these broken people. The lack of focus causes “Jimpa” to be one big broad metaphor without any indelible symbolism.