I can’t believe my eyes. A film set and shot in Portland, getting mainstream attention (albeit in a slow weekend for new releases) and it’s somehow good?! Oh, you already know I’ve got to check this out.

(DISCLOSURE: My old friend Crystal Ann Munoz gets a brief scene to play a one-joke character, but I don’t recognize any other names in the cast or crew.)

Exec producer Dylan O’Brien plays a pair of identical twin brothers named Rocky (the gay one who moved to Portland) and Roman (the straight one who stayed at home in Moscow, Idaho). The movie begins when Rocky is tragically and prematurely killed in a car accident, and I won’t go into details here. The important thing is that after Roman and his mother (Lisa, played by Lauren Graham) come out to Portland for the funeral, Roman takes the opportunity to move out of his mother’s basement and inherit Rocky’s old apartment. (Seriously, he got that sweet apartment in downtown PDX? Sweet upgrade!) Rocky’s boss even graciously offers Roman his deceased brother’s job.

If this arrangement sounds slightly disturbing, it’s not just you. Everywhere he goes, Roman meets up with Rocky’s old friends — typically gay men whom Roman doesn’t know or have anything in common with — and they all talk with Roman as if he’s Rocky. He’s freaked out because somebody is talking with him as if they’re not complete strangers, and the third party is freaked out because it’s like Rocky has somehow come back from the dead.

And of course that’s not getting started on Roman’s own relationship with his dead twin brother. While the two of them grew up doing everything together, they drifted apart as they got older. Rocky went on to live his best (albeit brief) life as an openly proud homosexual with a fantastic career, a thriving social life, and experiences all over the world. Roman, on the other hand, is an alcoholic with a long history of street fights, living with his mother while getting into vicious arguments with her. (To be fair, we only ever see Roman and Lisa together when they’re both deep in mourning for Rocky and not taking it well.) I might further add that Roman didn’t initially respond well to Rocky coming out, and there’s some residual guilt over that. Roman always resented Rocky as the “good brother” and Mama’s favorite, while Rocky felt the same way about Roman.

It’s fascinating how the two brothers only grew more distant to the point where they barely had anything in common, but now Rocky is gone and Roman feels like some vital chunk of himself is missing. The end result is that he’s basically a drunken pile of free-floating guilt with a history of violence and a massive chip on his shoulder.

Luckily, Roman does the smart thing and finds a support group. Yes, he’s lucky enough to find a support group of people his age who’ve lost a twin sibling. It’s not a very large group. In fact, based on the terrible first impression, it seems like the group was only made so Charlotte (Tasha Smith) could have a test audience for her godawful stand-up routine. Luckily this turns out to be a legitimately helpful support group in later montages, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Enter Dennis (played by writer/director/producer James Sweeney), the gay twin brother of a dead straight man. Surprisingly, the gay surviving twin and the straight surviving twin hit it off and start a supportive friendship. But of course there are complications.

Unfortunately, most of the complications stem from a massive plot twist that completely upends everything we thought we knew about the characters and the premise. And that plot twist comes twenty minutes in. We’re told pretty much right up front that everything we thought we knew is wrong, and so we spend the entire second and third acts watching and waiting for all the lies and secrets to come undone.

In other words, this will be a damned tough movie to try and discuss without spoiling everything.

To put this as short and spoiler-free as I can, this is very much a movie about companionship. As the plot unfolds, the film explores gay romances, straight romances, friendships, brotherhoods, parent/child relationships, and many other types of relationships with the living and the dead. By the same token, this is very much a play about loneliness and the mental/emotional damage thereof.

Roman and Dennis are both dealing with crippling loss and depression, in addition to metric tons of guilt. The difference is that Roman copes with all of that by way of violent anger toward himself and others, while Dennis copes with pathological dishonesty toward himself and others. Far more importantly, one of them is actively trying to do the necessary work of improving and healing and moving on, while the other one is only interested in treating the symptoms while actively worsening the underlying cause.

All of this gets intensely more complicated with the involvement of Marcie (Aisling Franciosi). Because of course a woman has to come in and complicate a bromance. The fact that this particular bromance is between a straight man and a gay man is at once pitiful and hilarious in its execution.

First of all, Marcie is an only child, so of course she can’t relate to the concept of a dead sibling, much less a twin. Additionally, Marcie is exactly the kind of effervescent pretty face who’s far more thoughtful and intelligent than she ever gets credit for. This brings about a kind of irrational hatred from Dennis, who treats his coworker with a thinly-veiled antipathy because he’s alone and miserable and she doesn’t seem to know how good she’s got it.

This jealousy is further intensified when Roman and Marcie strike up a relationship. Three is definitely a crowd here, but only because Dennis is so perpetually needy and jealous that he can’t seem to get what Roman and Marcie have. It’s a toxic and frankly pathetic relationship because Roman and Marcie both give and take with their relationships and grow from each other as a result, while Dennis only seems capable of taking everything he can get.

I’m getting dangerously close to spoilers here, so let’s move on to gushing about Portland. This is a movie that literally opens with a MAX train rolling through downtown. There are multiple scenes that take place in what looks like a New Seasons. There’s a whole set piece that takes place in Hopscotch. (I’ve been there — it’s awesome. And I can confirm that the management is indeed quite accommodating.) After all the movies I’ve seen that were set and shot in Portland — especially coming off that godawful Night Always Comes — it feels wonderful to see a movie with a depiction of the city that I can get behind. This is my town and these are my people.

Granted, we don’t get a shot of any bridges or any other Portland landmarks, but oh well. The downtown skyline and the Rose Quarter both look pretty.

So, are there any nitpicks? The big one for me is Lauren Graham’s character. While Graham is clearly trying her best and she certainly looks the part, there’s something about the mother character that didn’t quite click the way it should’ve. It’s frustrating how the character just kinda flits in and out of the movie without ever accomplishing much of anything. It feels like Lisa needed another few minutes of screentime to sufficiently develop a coherent point, but cutting her screentime in favor of the Roman/Dennis dynamic was unquestionably the right move.

Otherwise, Twinless is quite the solid little movie. The cast is astounding (even the aforementioned Graham is putting her back into it), the comedy is sweetly endearing, and the drama is suitably poignant. I love the depiction of my hometown, the camerawork and editing have some marvelous flourishes (most notably those ingenious split-screens), and that twist at the end of the first act is mind-blowingly good. It all evens out to a heartwrenching queer film about loneliness and companionship, powered by phenomenal chemistry and masterful tension throughout.

I’m happy to recommend it.