Two Times You (Dos Veces Tú) Image

Two Times You (Dos Veces Tú)

By Andy Howell | February 20, 2019

These actors are charismatic as hell. Askenazi knows exactly how to capture them in a way that makes you want to climb right into the screen and live in that world with them.  Though this is a Mexican production, he makes excellent use of popular American music like Fleet Foxes and Father John Misty. The actor who plays Benny (Daniel Adissi) even contributed to the soundtrack. And I want to give a shout-out to the set design and art direction by Christian Gallardo and Connie Martinez.  Each couple has a distinctive look to their apartment that informs their characters. And while we’re at it, cinematographer Beto Casillas should get a prize because the shots and the lighting in this movie are something else. The scenes span a wide range of conditions, from nighttime cityscape flyovers, to the rooftop shots, to intimate bedroom scenes, and they all look amazing.  

Apparently, there were something like 20 edits of this movie, and I can see why.  The puzzle pieces fit together in so many ways. The editing by Jorge García has a certain pace — each scene is a whole moment, but when a new one starts you’re often not sure where it belongs in time. The result is that you are really never sure what comes next. This is exacerbated by some extremely strange things goings on, like something out of a David Lynch film. As a result, there’s an air of mystery hanging over everything.

“…the film’s style alone makes it a must-see.  And when I say style, I mean everything…”

There’s one way of doing mystery that really pisses me off, and that is introducing strangeness just for the sake of it, with no real idea about how to resolve it (e.g., Inland Empire).  At the other extreme, if your plot is too predictable, there’s no mystery at all.  Two Times You is almost perfectly balanced — there’s a thematic point to every mysterious thing, even if it isn’t all entirely logical.  I say almost because there were a few times when I felt things went a touch overboard — one scene had a deliciously strange spooky + sexy feeling, and a completely confounding effect on subsequent scenes, but it just felt so blasted into another universe as to lose the audience a bit.  Most of the time this works in the film’s favor though. The result is like most great art — there are things to read in, but they aren’t wrapped up in a bow. You end up thinking about what it all means for hours.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. Maria G says:

    This movie was pretty good, a bit confusing with the back and forth. I’m still not sure what happened at the end, who actually died?

  2. Bret Shirley says:

    I saw this last night in San Diego. People who can’t write, people who can’t direct and people who can’t act make movies with gratuitous sex and nudity. This is one of those movies. Wandering, incoherent plot. Odd cinematography. Not worth the time to see. 9.5? What are you on?

    • Ricardo Otero Córdoba says:

      The thing is, you GIVE ABSOLUTELY NO facts to backup your claims. If you were expecting to watch a Marvel film, then you walked into the wrong movie theater. There’s a plot: People coping with a loss and their sanity is at stake. There’s no gratuitous nudity since it’s plot related and it’s handled rather well by the director. How about you make your own film instead of trashing other people’s work with reviews based on nothing but your own biased opinions.

  3. Milly Cohen says:

    A review that embellish my soul, I saw the movie and I also felt as excited as you. It is my best for far. Thank you for putting in words what I felt and could have not written as you did. Not in English, at least.

Join our Film Threat Newsletter

Newsletter Icon