Sci-fi movies let us imagine wild futures where all kinds of incredible things become possible. But there’s almost always a catch. Nothing in life, even a highly futuristic and technologically advanced life, can ever be that simple. In this case, Karen Gillan stars in the movie Dual, She plays a character called Sarah who thinks she’s dying. In answer to her terminal diagnosis, she clones herself so she can live beyond her death. (A very natural occurrence in Sarah’s society, it seems.) But nothing goes as planned when Sarah makes a miraculous recovery. And instead, we’re left with something like The Parent Trap meets The Hunger Games. Take a look at Dual‘s first trailer.
The official description for the trailer shares:
Upon receiving a terminal diagnosis, Sarah opts for a cloning procedure to ease her loss on her friends and family. When she makes a sudden and miraculous recovery, her attempts to have her clone decommissioned fail and lead to a court-mandated duel to the death. Now she has one year to train her body and mind for the fight of her life.
“Can’t have two of you walking around forever, that would be ridiculous,” an official comments glibly in the trailer. And that seems to sum up Dual‘s perspective about itself. It seems to live somewhere between the mundane and the ridiculous. Although the stakes of Dual are life and death, the dry humor demonstrated by the trailer feels perfect. And ultimately, this feels like a meditation on embracing yourself and what it means not only to live but to be alive.
Aaron Paul’s character asks Karen Gillan’s Sarah, “Do you want to live?” And that, it seems, is the thesis of the movie. Though, of course, now Sarah’s clone is also alive and likely too wants to live. We’ll see how Dual carries it off.
Karen Gillan, Aaron Paul, Beulah Koale, Theo James Written star in Dual, and Riley Stearns directs the film. Dual releases in theaters on April 15.