
The Image of You first introduces Anna and Zoe Mercer (Sasha Pieterse), who are Monoamniotic-Monochorionic twin sisters. The film guarantees, for instance, that Monoamniotic-Monochorionic twins are not more frequent than 1% of all twin pregnancies. But equally uncommon, one would say, is such work as The Image of You, which at the same time is not ‘cliche-ridden’ and also not ‘absurd’. If the baby were a newborn, then its parents could be described as Gone Girl and Dead Ringer, and they certainly did not quit drinking and smoking while pregnant.
Ana offends Zoe by not letting loose and being too obedient. It’s not that the sisters are lacking fun in their lives. They work part-time (Ana at the Community Resource Center, Zoe in acting & modeling) and live comfortably because of their successful parents David and Alexia Nestor Carbonell and Mira Sorvino. Despite Ana’s innocence, she expresses a desire to find love through dating apps as Zoe rolls her eyes. The two sisters are close, even though Zoe has aggression issues and even Alexia has accepted that her daughters prefer each other more than her.
Early in the film, Nick Parker Young who is an investment banker takes Ana out on a date and looks enticing from the outside, however quite the opposite of what he should be in terms of personality. Ana and Nick are paper dolls with no background. Ana is a potato (a few supporting cast members exist just to announce to the audience that Ana is indeed a nice lady) and Nick is supposed to romance the audience but in reality, he romances a potato.
The movie is resolute in portraying the two that they are a match made in heaven (they manage to profess love after meeting when the other has not even broached the subject of love movies). After the first six weeks of knowing each other, they got engaged and held for six weeks just to remind the world of Shylock. Honestly speaking, the love story treating all the written and acted elements is clunky and clichéd to be featured on the Hallmark Channel. The most panoramic of shots, the most dramatic of flashbacks, and the most dynamic of split screens still do not help the movie from its cookie-cutter basic plot of romance.
In their romance, though, Zoe doesn’t come into the picture. From day one, she seems wary of Nick, and not without good cause. For one, he chooses to go by his middle name on dating websites instead of his first name. He claims it is for privacy reasons, yet he possesses several images of his actual face in his profile. She watches how Ana’s date went with him, she meets Ana at her workplace, and she talks about it with her mother. Of course, much to Ana’s unhappiness, she also avoids meeting Nick when she comes with her new husband. Nevertheless, she does get to meet Nick, and that is not how she or Nick had imagined it to be. And this is when the thriller and mystery part starts with a bang.
The good news for some probably, but not all, is that the movie does get better as it carries on. Based on a novel by Adele Parks MBE, this movie can only be comprehended by the readers of the said text in terms of how much it follows the author’s storyline. As with any other thriller, it does not offer anything new if we consider the same old patterns ellipses of clues, a yearning for the truth, revealing dirty facts, backlash, etc. If you have already viewed more than ten of these films, it is highly likely that you will know where the plot is headed by the second half of the story.
That of course, does not imply that the movie will not be entertaining. There are some good scenes here and there. Whstong’s sister, Rebecca (Michele Nordin) or Zoey, appears to be rather uncontrolled when hearing that her brother got engaged after six weeks of knowing someone. There is a very funny bit where Zoe basically destroys Nick’s dating profiles. In fact, as much as Chris Sivertson’s screenplay tries to stereotype Pieterse in this picture, she manages to convincingly portray a range of twin characters.
As you can imagine, Zoe gets more than her fair share of range, better lines, and better scenes. And somehow, even if it is naive to be so irrationally optimistic, the film’s big twist which was introduced earlier in the film, and even thrice during the film in the most cliche scenes, is pretty well developed through the narrative.
The Image of You is one of those films that after some time stops venting anger, rage, and other feelings, and instead starts to evoke emotions more along the lines of humor and entertainment, albeit not the highest quality. The performer’s deliveries differ, and although they try hard to be human at the beginning, over time, they become cartoonish and broader in their approach. For sure Jeff Fisher, the picture’s head, must be aware of the picture he works on. For instance, when Zoe walks to the screen, it’s disappointing that no horse can have her almost all the men on the date overgaze before being hushed by their partners. He loves to zoom in on characters when they are shocked and the songs that play while all these funny things occur, do not make the movie serious enough, for the characters are so drawn together that the movie is ridiculously close to being a spoof. Of course, if you can get through the first act which is just painful to sit through, the film more than delivers on any conventions that it knows its viewers will be interested in.
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