"Another Me" centers on the teenager Fay (Sophie Turner), whose life gradually spirals out of control, as she becomes convinced that a menacing doppelganger is following her and threatening to ruin her world and take her place. We are introduced to Fay at a crucial event in her life - her dad being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis - and it is exactly this event that seems to unlock the strange and eerie episodes which will haunt Sophie's character onward. In this regard, "Another Me", is first and foremost a psychological thriller with underlying dramatic nuances and not a supernatural horror movie in the most strict sense of the word, although it definitely contains some quite chilling scenes, especially the sequences that take place in a creepy underpass, which were excellently shot and realized, capitalizing fully on the perfect visual balance of light and darkness. Coixet's "partner in crime" - cinematographer Jean-Claude Larrieu did a tremendous job as usual, so that these scenes prove very impressive and memorable.In my mind, the closest comparison to "Another Me" is the US-version of "Dark Water"(2005) - although the movies' stories are different, they occupy the same genre-niche of psychological horror, the emotions that both of these films invoke and the impressions they imprint on the viewer's mind are of the same art, and both of them were very similarly (and quite undeservedly if i might add) bashed by almost all critics and horror-fans alike. The most recent successful example in this genre would be "The Babadook" and I'm sure many people will vigorously object to even putting both of these films in the same sentence on the basis of "The Babadook" being already established as an unimaginably clever and deeply philosophical work of art among horror movies, whereas "Another Me" is supposedly not nearly that complex or "artsy". Well, I beg to differ. Coixet's film is every bit as thought-provoking and absorbing, if not more, as the Australian horror-hit, but contrary to what that film did, it does not revel in forced and over-the-top acting to get its' point across. "Another Me" is quite content in painting a seemingly calmer, but ultimately more disturbing darkness - that of the inner world of everyday people set on a collision course with inevitable tragedy, people who have lost their inner peace, but are seeking to claim it back - each in their own way. The central character Fay is a fairly normal teenager, who suffers the echoes and after-effects of her parents' collapsing marriage, brought on by her dad's looming sickness and the subsequent confusion and fear, as she realizes that a mysterious unexplained supernatural presence is following her around and often impersonating her, as if bent on claiming her life. She seeks escape in the arts - photography, taking part in a school staging of Macbeth, basically a very bright kid. Fay's dad (Rhys Ifans) is plagued by the consuming weight of guilt for a desperate decision he took in the past, in addition to the decimating effects of his excruciating condition on his physical and mental strength and his family life. There is a tangible rift between him and his wife Ann (Claire Forlani) in the days following the harrowing diagnose and the only solace he finds is in conversing with his daughter, always interested in her daily routine, in her troubles and worries. Indeed, Fay seems to be closer to her dad, especially after she finds out her mom's secret. Ann, unable to cope with the pressure and burden of having to take care of her sick husband and watch him slowly fall apart, seeks relief outside the family nest. And while her actions are of course most disagreeable, this movie doesn't aim to trample on its' characters and bluntly criticize them, it merely shows their flaws and allows you to at least partially understand them, if not condone them. This is most obvious in the scene where Fay finally confronts her mom (after she has known for quite a while) about her extramarital affair. Virtually in every other film I have seen, this type of scene is accompanied by insulting behavior, a lot of screaming and bickering is involved, subsequent sobbing, etc. In "Another Me" this scene is done in a more restrained way - Fay is clearly angry at her mom's actions, but doesn't sound disrespectful when she confronts her, in fact the dialogue between the two of them is handled in such a sense, that it seems like two adult people discussing their problems, rather than just a mother and her teenage daughter dwelling in accusations and insults.There are of course downsides to the film and although I didn't feel they were harming the overall impression, I will nevertheless discuss. Some people mentioned the romantic relationship between Fay and her classmate Drew, in terms of it not being fully developed and in some ways distracting from/conflicting with the overall story and the tone of the film. There is some truth to that - it's there just to provide a contrast to the oppressive events depicted in the first 60 minutes and to offer its' central character her own sense of escape from reality. It could have been handled much better though, by revealing more of the reasons why Drew and Fay connect so easily, what are the special things they find and appreciate in each other. Restricted in a 86-minute format, the film doesn't have too much time to focus on that though or to show more of Drew's character. It seems decided on immersing the viewer in its' dreary atmosphere and delivering a sense of dread and unease. And deliver it does. Scene by scene the shadows move closer on its' central character and on us as viewers, right until the twist-ending, which while not being particularly original or hard to foresee, is a truly competent conclusion and it works both in the straight supernatural sense, as well as in the more metaphorical sense of interpretation.

The director, Isabel Coixet, has lent the images a peculiar texture. Half the film seems to involve panes of glass, the shiny walls of elevators, or mirrors of one sort or another. If possible they're fogged up or their transparency is lessened by patches of raindrops. Like the heroine, Sophie Turner, you're sometimes not sure of what you're seeing. But, thank God, no directorial razzle dazzle. The camera moves only when it should and there are few whiz-bangs on the sound track.Turner is a teen-ager in a British school. Her taciturn father is bound to a wheelchair. Her mother, she discovers, is having an affair with one of the school's teachers.The central theme is that Turner feels a Doppelgänger is following her about, sometimes taking her place at home or elsewhere. You have to love the idea of the double, someone who looks enough like you to confuse others. It goes back to Edgar Allan Poe and comes down to us through various channels. Any theme that is so popular can't be all bad.I once had a call from someone with exactly my name who lived near me in Philadelphia, complaining that he was getting midnight phone calls from my friends and asking me to tell them to stop it. I felt compelled to ask the guy out for dinner and he was my age, resembled me in his somatotype, and, indeed, was "Robert John Maxwell, Ph.D.," just as the midnight callers had asked, only he was a chemist not an anthropologist. I couldn't take my eyes off the guy at the restaurant. If he lifted a forkful of food, I followed it. Eerie, I'll tell you.Well -- I see I went slightly off the track there, but if I had a Doppelgänger like Poe's "William Wilson," he'd have reined me in pronto.The treatment of the story seems kind of sluggish at times. And I don't think it's all that well written. Sometimes it seemed as if the writers didn't know exactly where they wanted the story to go. Yes, Sophie Turner could be imagining things. As a counselor tells her, she has a crippled father, and "sometimes a trauma induces another trauma," whatever that means. But then again, others see this double too at times. So Turner can't be imagining her experiences. Then her mother tells her that she'd had an identical twin who died and was buried. Where the hell did that come, and why? We find out at the end, but the end makes no sense. It's as if the writers had thrown up their hands and simply given up.That's too bad because, as I say, it's a juicy and fruitful theme. Alfred Hitchcock did a marvelous job with it on one of this television programs, "The Case of Mister Pelham." There was no more logic to it than in this film but the ending was satisfying because it was a reasonable culmination of everything that had happened before. Sadly, that sense of completion is missing here.

Another Me is quite a competent film with an interesting screenplay, good atmosphere and solid performances. What I liked the most from this film is the ambiguity displayed by the screenplay during the first half, when we are not sure whether something supernatural is happening, or if it's just the main character's nerves and concern for her father's situation, besides of being stressed due to the rehearsals of a play. The film brings us clues which make any alternative possible: from the supernatural point of view, there are mysterious shadows with nothing projecting them; and from the mundane point of view, there is a rival student with long red hair, like the main character, something which reinforces the theory of a joke. The screenplay keeps being interesting during the second half, but it includes some unnecessary moments, such as the main character's romance with a gallant and the domestic tension provoked by her father's declining condition. However, the film recovers from those small missteps during the ending, adding suspense, growing suspicions and surprising revelations which enrich the mystery of the ghost double. Another Me adopts some tricks and concepts from the horror genre, but I would define it as a psychological thriller with a well achieved atmosphere, competent performances (highlighting Rhys Ifans', offering a weird serious work, very different to the lunatics he usually plays) and some subtle surprises which separate this film from other juvenile thrillers, revealing a more mature and artistic sensibility, which is exactly what we can expect considering director and screenwriter Isabel Coixet's previous work. In conclusion, I wouldn't consider it a great movie, but I liked Another Me pretty much, and I can recommend it. There are better films about "doppelgangers" (such as Enemy); and better tales about teenage neurosis out of control (such as Ginger Snaps). But none of them offers Shakespearean interludes which employ Macbeth as a mirror of the juvenile drama; that's where we can notice Coixet's ambition to transcend genres and tell universal stories based on the human experience.

This movie seemed like it would be great. Concept seemed interesting and I love pretty much every actor in this movie so how bad could it be? Well, turns out it can be pretty terrible.Firstly it moves so slow. Every scene seems to drag on forever. The movie feels 3 times longer than the actual run time. It's dreary. It's uninteresting. It's hard to care about the fate of any character.Basically if you love a good scary movie or if you love any of the actors in this movie, do yourself a favour and go watch something else. This movie didn't deserve the talent it wasted, don't let it waste your time as well.