The Game of Thrones cast have had mixed fortunes on the big screen. Whilst the likes of Gwendoline Christie, Natalie Dorman and Emilia Clarke have hit it big with their Star Wars, Hunger Games and Terminators, others such as Sophie Turner have been landed with second-rate entries such as this.
Here the sometimes Sansa Stark plays Fay, a teenager whose supposedly perfect lifestyle is turned upside down when her father (Rhys Ifans) is taken ill. Forced to move with her parents to a run-down Welsh housing estate, Fay’s misfortunes continue when she acquires a doppelgänger – one that seems determined to take over her life.
The concept of the doppelgänger has led to many classic horrors from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Black Swan. Unfortunately here, in gearing the film towards a young audience (it’s based on a popular Young Adult novel by Cathy MacPhail), director Isabel Coixet fails to inject any scares, atmosphere or indeed originality into the premise.
Fay’s double is seen in places she hasn’t been, stands in for her in rehearsals of the school play and takes post-coital selfies with Fay’s boyfriend. But it’s not until the film’s latter stages that it actually starts to feel at all menacing, and even then it’s underplayed.
A big part of the problem is that the film fails to inject much mystery into Fay’s double. We’re offered a pair of fairly run of the mill explanations – is it supernatural, or is someone she knows (in this case a rival at school) trying to ruin her life? Unfortunately we know almost from the start which is the answer, and once the truth is revealed, the final explanation of the doppelgänger’s origins and motivations is, to be honest, fairly hackneyed.
Of all the Thrones cast, Sophie Turner is probably the one who (unfairly) picks up the most flack for her performance. Whilst she’s unlikely to win over her detractors here, showing some of the same awkwardness that marked her early performances in Game of Thrones (the film was shot early in the show’s run), it does prove there’s more to her than Sansa Stark. It’ll be interesting to see once she moves to the big leagues with next year’s X-Men: Apocalypse (where she’s playing Jean Grey).
Another Me is ultimately rather pointless, taking an oft-used premise and failing to find anything original to say with it. Even a lively supporting cast, including Ifans, Claire Forlani and Jonathan Rhys Meyers can’t stop it descending into cliché.
ANOTHER ME / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: ISABEL COIXET / STARRING: SOPHIE TURNER, JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS, RHYS IFANS, CLAIRE FORLANI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
