'The Image of You' Review: A Ridiculous Romp of a Thriller
Sasha Pieterse as “Zoe” in the thriller, THE IMAGE OF YOU. Photo courtesy of Republic Pictures (a Paramount Pictures label).
The Image of You begins by introducing us to Anna and Zoe Mercer (Sasha Pieterse). They’re not just twin sisters, they’re Monoamniotic-Monochorionic twin sisters. The film assures us that Monoamniotic-Monochorionic twins only occur in 1% of all twin pregnancies. Equally rare, one might say, is a film like The Image of You, which seamlessly threads the line between ‘painfully cliché’ and ‘utterly ridiculous’. If the film was a baby, then its parents might have been Gone Girl and Dead Ringer, and they clearly didn’t stop smoking and drinking while pregnant.
Ana is the goody two-shoes twin while Zoe is the impulsive hedonist twin. They both work part-time jobs (the Community Resource Center for Ana, acting and modelling for Zoe) yet they still live luxuriously thanks to their inexplicably wealthy parents David and Alexia (Nestor Carbonell and Mira Sorvino, respectively). Ana is earnest, looking for love on dating apps while Zoe mocks her naiveté. Despite their differences - not to mention Zoe’s attitude - the two sisters have an unbreakable bond. Even Alexia is resigned to the fact that her daughters are closer to each other than they are to her, their own mother.
[L-R] Parker Young as “Nick” and Sasha Pieterse as “Zoe” in the thriller, THE IMAGE OF YOU. Photo courtesy of Republic Pictures (a Paramount Pictures label).
Early in the film, Ana goes on a date with Nick (Parker Young), an attractive investment banker who appears to be a perfect match for her, at least in terms of blandness and awkwardness. Both Ana and Nick are cardboard cutouts of people, defined by singular traits. Ana is sweet (a couple of supporting characters exist purely to tell the audience that Ana is the nicest person they’ve ever met), and Nick is meant to be charming, but he’s actually just dim. The film is very determined that we see these two as the perfect couple (their whirlwind romance somehow manages to reach the “I love you” stage before reaching the “do you like rom-coms?” phase). They get engaged after just six weeks of knowing each other. Truthfully, the love story, as written and performed, creaks along in a manner which would be unworthy of the Hallmark Channel. No amount of sweeping shots, montages, and split-screen transitions can save the film from its paint-by-numbers love story.
Their romance doesn’t account for Zoe, however. From the very beginning, she is sceptical of Nick, and not without reason. For one thing, he uses his middle name rather than his first name on his dating apps. He argues that he doesn’t want to be seen by his friends (mindlessly forgetting the fact that his literal face in the pictures). She spies on Ana’s first date with him, she confronts Ana at her place of work, and she discusses her concerns with her mother. Much to Ana’s chagrin, she also shirks the chance to meet Nick when she brings her new fiancé. She does eventually meet Nick, though, and the meeting does not go the way either of them expects. And from there, the thriller and mystery aspect kicks into gear with gusto.
It will doubtless reassure many to know that the film does improve after the first act, though some will find the rest equally disappointing. This film is an adaptation of a novel by Adele Parks MBE, and only the readers of said book will be able to glean how accurate it is to the author’s original story. As a thriller standing on its own, however, it breaks no new ground with the clues, the furious search for the truth, the covering up of shameful secrets, the shocking revelations, the fallout, etc. If you’ve seen more than ten of these films, you will likely guess where this story is going by around the halfway point.
[L-R] Sasha Pieterse as “Anna” and Mira Sorvino “Alexia” in the thriller, THE IMAGE OF YOU. Photo courtesy of Republic Pictures (a Paramount Pictures label).
That, of course, doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy the film. There are a few bright spots here and there. Nick’s sister Rebecca (Michele Nordin) gives a pretty realistic response to the fact that her brother’s gotten engaged to a woman he’s known for six weeks. Zoe has a genuinely hilarious bit where she eviscerates Nick’s dating profile. In fact, for all that the screenplay by Chris Sivertson does to pigeonhole Pieterse’s performance, she does an effective job playing twins. As you could imagine, Zoe gets the most range, the better lines, and the better scenes. And whether it may be predictable or not, the film’s big twist is genuinely well established throughout the story, even during the most hackneyed parts.
The Image of You is one of those inexplicable films which becomes more tolerable - or at least, more entertaining - as it becomes more absurd. The actors’ performances, while stilted and clunky at first, improve over time as they embrace the hyperbole. Certainly, the film’s director, Jeff Fisher, clearly must have known what sort of film he was making. When Zoe gets to make a sexy entrance, he adds a scene where several men stare at her before getting told off by their dates. He gleefully makes use of a zoom-up shot when a character finds out the big twist, and the soundtrack is full of songs that are so on-the-nose that the film almost reaches parody levels. If you can endure the cringey first act, you’ll be rewarded with a film that is, if nothing else, fully aware of which audience expectations it will meet.