Another Me is a movie that I expected to think either nothing of or despise. After watching Dark Phoenix, I was curious to delve deeper into Sophie Turner's other work and this one intrigued me the most. However, its 2.2 average score on Letterboxd and the very low audience score on rotten tomatoes worried me.
When I watched it though for the first time last month, I loved it but didn't grasp everything fully. However, when I watched it today with Will Walker (who had not seen it until today), I got a better grasp and loved it even more.
The story is admittedly a complex one that does require the audience to pay constant attention to it. There is a lot of foreshadowing and symbolism that fills this movie.
One of the biggest pieces of foreshadowing though is the scar on Fay's hand that she made to differentiate her from Lily. This matters since it is an indicator to tell who Fay is and who Lily is. Speaking of Lily, she is Fay's twin who was killed as the result of a disease that forced her and Fay's father, Don, to sacrifice one of them. This results in lily becoming an angered spirit who drives both Fay and Don to insanity. Her main goal is to rob Fay of her life and get what she feels she deserves and she actually succeeds. there is no dumb fairy tale finale in which Fay wins the day and overcomes Lily. The movie ends like it should, depressing and haunting.
In a way, Lily symbolizes Fay's descent into madness. Lily causes Fay to see her which causes her paranoia to reveal dark aspects about her parents, especially her mother, Ann, who has been cheating on her disabled husband with Fay's drama teacher. Fay then confronts her mother about this and Ann then tells Fay that she will not sleep with him again. Of course, Ann is later shown to have lied as she was then pointed out by the police to be in the car with the drama teacher when Lily mortally wounded him.
Fay seems to be more attached to her father, Don since he not only seems more understanding between him and Ann, but near the end, reveals to Fay that he can also see Lily as well. He even tries to stop Fay from seeing lily, in fear of Lily stealing Fay. Fay though thinks that she can resolve this whole thing and storms out of the room. This impulsive decision results in her not only being consumed by Lily, but lead to her father's death, when he goes on a faulty elevator which was established as such earlier on.
The acting is without a doubt my favorite part of this movie. The two best performances are thankfully the two that needed to be amazing. Sophie Turner is phenomenal as Fay and makes her character extremely likable and realistic. The one i was surprised by the most was Rhys Ifans( who some may know as the stupid looking Goomba Lizard in the Amazing Spider Man) as Don. Unlike his meh performance in that movie, here is he is allowed to actually act and really sells his disability which is extremely hard to do without being so over the top that it becomes a joke ( i am looking at you What’s Eating Gilbert Grape for having Leo portray the most offensive version of someone on the spectrum).
The cinematography completely took me back since i was totally ready for the same level of pigshit camerawork, editing and lighting from horrid turds like Slender Man or Bye Bye Man. Instead i got lighting that embraced the tone of each scene perfectly, camera work that was flawless and had the best use of shaky cam since 28 Days Later and had coherent editing that was able to communicate it's story without me getting a headache or boring me to death. The music is really great to and helps build the correct tone.
Overall, Another Me is a quite overlooked masterpiece that is worth your time. I will say it is very hard to find without paying a hefty price for a physical copy. However if you have the 3.99 for a digital copy or go on a bizarre streaming site( and like me, hopefully find a site that can convert the link into a mp4 file), do so as soon as possible.
