It’s only human to imagine shedding one’s personality for that of a friend or acquaintance. But what sort of person would actually decide to embody the assumed identity? Los Angeles-based writer and director Jenée LaMarque’s first feature film, The Pretty One (Required Viewing/Dada Films) requires actress Zoe Kazan to do just that. Playing twins Audrey and Laurel, Kazan conjures up two characters—sisters with vastly different behavioral patterns—whose personalities span the spectrum of femininity. LeMarque, a Stanford graduate who was born in West Covina, was inspired by a book of first person accounts of twins who lost a brother or sister (even Elvis had a twin brother who died at birth).

In the film, opening Friday, February 21, the character of Laurel is a homebody who lives with her widower father and helps him create reproduction paintings. She’s stuck in an extended adolescence mourning the death of her mother while her twin Audrey has moved on, moved out, and works for a real estate company selling cutesy cottages. To celebrate their birthday, Audrey takes Laurel to get a haircut and Laurel decides to have her locks shorn and chopped in the same style as her twin. At first Audrey is horrified. “Laurel, I want you to look like you,” says Audrey. On the way back to their father’s house, the sisters get into a car accident that only Laurel survives, but everyone thinks she’s Audrey due to the hairstyle. Then she assumes her sister’s identity and attends her own funeral. No one speaks about Laurel at the burial—even her father—and Laurel (as Audrey) speaks up, “It’s too bad that Laurel never got a chance to get out of this place since she clearly meant shit to all of you people.”

Bolstered by her assumed identity, Laurel moves into her sister’s house and meets her sister’s tenant Basel (Jake Johnson) who takes a punch from the married and self-involved Charles (Ron Livingston) who Audrey was seeing. Basel blows off her apology, “Your twin just died, you never have to be sorry for anything again.” Slowly, Laurel realizes that she has to navigate her own way through the world regardless of who she is or pretends to be. The Audrey persona is a crutch, but Laurel still has to figure out who she is. Though she dwelled on her mother’s death for years, even wearing her mother’s clothes to be close to her, Laurel realizes, “I don’t want to sit around and think about how half of me is dead forever.” Once Laurel admits her identity, the movie becomes increasingly melodramatic. But the questions it raises early on are enough to spark an internal debate among viewers, and that—along with the film’s vaguely ’70s setting—is enough to lend it some indie credibility.

By Elizabeth Varnell

 

Pictured: Zoe Kazan in a film still from The Pretty One.
Photo courtesy of Required Viewing/Dada Films

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