The Other Me

Perhaps if it had been more surreal, more dreamlike, this odd romantic drama might have worked. But as it is, it's a dull mishmash of things happening -- and not happening -- that never really connects. Boasting an executive producer credit for David Lynch, The Other Me feels like it was reaching for a Lynchian tone but somehow stopped halfway. (You have to wonder what the great director might have been thinking while watching this?) It's too realistic for the otherworldly stuff to work (even a black-and-white dream sequence is too literal), and it's too inconsistent in its rules to comply with reality. In other words, sometimes Irakli can see the world around him, animals, shapes, etc., and sometimes he can see nothing at all (he stumbles when trying to find a chair in which to sit down). And yet he says, "I see everyone ... everything."

The movie gets points for casting the lovely Pejic and acknowledging Nino's challenges when coming out to her father, but that subplot has nothing to do with Irakli's vision. It seems tacked on. Indeed, the characters, including Rhona Mitra as Nutsa's boss and Michael Socha as Irakli's best friend, are all cheating on one another or with one other -- or being cheated on -- and none of it really means anything. It's all passionless. Sturgess seems to be trying to inject some life-blood into things with his manic performance; he over-emotes so intensely that he's left gasping for breath after every line reading. (Matching him is the actor playing his doctor, who has a bedside manner like a scorpion's.) If only The Other Me had been able to cut loose and get really weird, it might have been worth seeing.