Note: Thanks to Out On Film for an early screening as this buzzy Sundance acquisition gets a theatrical run in select markets starting this week.

Between seclusion from common COVID-era customs, confusion over gender roles, delusion over modern etiquette and illusions of relationships forged online or in video games, it’s no wonder IRL has mainly been WTF, and male friendships have become a contemporary casualty. Following a riff on similar themes in this summer’s Friendship, James Sweeney writes and directs Twinless (B+) in which he also co-stars as a gay man who meets a straight man in a support group for people whose twins have passed away, and the memories of lost siblings are stand-ins for the macro mystery of fallen fraternity and restoration of the bygone brotherly bond. Although Sweeney’s character’s “sus” motivations tend to derail the most realistic parts of the droll dramedy, his Dennis benefits from acting opposite Dylan O’Brien’s brilliant takes as the hot-tempered and sometimes air-headed Roman and his confident flamboyant flashback brother Rocky. He’s doubly an on-screen revelation. The film’s fog of grief and despair is soon punctuated by displays of public bonhomie: shooting whiskey, cutting up courtside and co-crooning with abandon behind the wheel. Aisling Franciosi is terrific as the workmate of Dennis and love interest of Roman caught slackjawed amidst the bromantic bliss and bluster. Greg Cotten’s cinematography smartly evokes two parts of a whole in so many ways, via reflective surfaces and split screens and even divided sandwiches, viewers will truly discover visually and viscerally how the other half lives. Add to all this a very memorable score by Jung Jae-il, and it’s a stunning original marked by offbeat humor and universal yearning. The filmmaker is willing to face some ugly truths as he holds a mirror up to the modern world and finds what may look like identical scenarios to some can actually harbor multitudes.