TWINLESS: “I Don’t Know How to Be Here Without You.”

“I don’t know how to fucking be here without you?” That’s the deep, lonely, grief-stricken cry of Roman in James Sweeney’s 2025 film, Twinless, after losing his identical twin, Rocky: “I don’t know how to fucking be here without you?” It’s like a piece of him has been ripped away, and he doesn’t know how to go on. Yet, Dennis, a desperately alone and love-starved young man who never had a twin but longed for one, feels just as bereft every single day of his life. He can’t stand being on the outside, watching twosomes that exclude him, any more than Roman can. What Dennis will do to “twin-up” with someone, so that he’s not alone, is darkly comedic and not funny at all.

Unbearable Aloneness

“I don’t know how to fucking be here without you.” The sudden emptiness of loss. The hole where someone used to be. That’s what Roman feels when his twin, Rocky, is struck and killed by a car. It’s as if you are moving in slow motion through a nightmare, waiting to wake up. But you don’t. As Roman’s mom later admits: “They say there’s nothing worse than losing a child. But maybe there is. Maybe it’s losing a twin. A twin you’ve always been with. A presence you don’t question. As close to a part of yourself as you might ever hope to find. Sometimes that’s the challenge, though. How do you have a separate life? How do you make that ok? That’s Roman’s plight, now.

Rocky went off on his own. Roman (Dylan O’Brien) felt left behind. He believed his mom favored Rocky. Roman felt lost. Now Rocky is gone, and he feels more lost than ever. How does he live his own life? He’s never felt so alone like this. Alone in a way he cannot wrap his mind around. No, he has no idea how to live without Rocky in this world. Roman never imagined being Twinless.

He tells Dennis, “Being a twin kind of fucked me up as a kid. I never needed anyone else.” Now, he does. Now he’s lost and doesn’t know where to find someone. That is really alone. He’s in a sea of people who keep thinking he’s Rocky. Who cry and say things about themselves and their loss. At the funeral. In stores. On the street. It doesn’t feel like anyone understands how Roman feels. Well, maybe not until Dennis (James Sweeney), who’s Twinless, too. But not in the way Roman thinks, or in the Twinless Twins Support Group, for the same reason. They couldn’t be more different. Yet, the two become inseparable. They’re both very needy. Dennis even more so.

Twinning-Up in Twinless

Roman admits, “Now I can’t make friends with a fork. Once or twice a week isn’t enough. I want to hang out all the time. I’m too needy.” Dennis responds: “I hate doing things alone – opening mail, cooking meals, folding laundry ...” Soon, Roman calls Dennis: “Hey, do you want to get groceries with me?” So, they’re off on their first outing, happily choosing produce together.

When you can’t be alone, you find someone to twin up with, to be with all the time. Sometimes that’s called “co-dependency,” but it’s not so simple as a label. There are good reasons for not wanting to be alone in your past, even if you are or aren’t a twin. Especially when you never feel like “anyone’s favorite.” Dennis says that. Roman feels it. And, especially if you never felt wanted.

Dennis never felt wanted. He sat alone at lunch in High School. Kevin Ross told Marcie when she was suspicious and saw through his lies: “Kevin said his mom made him go to your birthday party, and no one else showed up.” Marcie’s not too sensitive. She’s protecting Roman in Twinless.

Feeling that way, of course, Dennis made up lots of fantasies: He was really a twin, but his father took his brother to Japan and left him with his mother (and that didn’t go well). Or that he was a victim of “the vanishing twin” in utero; he had a twin, and he lost him: “They say you’re born alone and you die alone, but with a twin, you have a built-in best friend.” Rocky said, “Twins get lonely, too. I’m lonely.  I was a ‘We’ and now I’m an ‘I.’” Dennis has never been a ‘We’ with anyone.

Feeling Lonely & Unwanted

Dennis’s outgoing message says it all: “I don’t know why I’m doing this. Nobody’s going to hear it.” One of the worst parts of feeling unwanted is that you expect it. You resent it. You grow up not believing anyone wants you, and you do all kinds of things to push people away. It’s a kind of self-protection, but it also goes against what you want and need. It alienates the people who try to be nice to you. Marcie (Aisling Franciosi), for example. Dennis is the poster boy for that.

He demeans Marcie when he sees Roman liking her: “I didn’t know you had so many friends.” She’s an extrovert. Has lots of friends. Always has. Dennis can’t stand that. Now she has Roman. He watches Roman kiss Marcie. Watches them fall in love. Dennis is the singleton. He feels “less than,” uses hostile ironies to show his intelligence, tells lies, and ends up more alone in Twinless.  

That’s why he wouldn’t give up on Rocky. Why, he kept asking until he got the answer he needed from Marcie. Not the “he isn’t into you, move on.” But some hope from the “every day is great in Marcie-land” Marcie. Optimism is in short supply for someone like Dennis. He desperately needs to believe that Rocky likes him. Wants him. That Rocky would be glad if he showed up at his door.

What Dennis really wants is someone who will never leave him. Someone who will hold his hand when he’s alone and sad. But even when he’s included, he’s always the “third one” who’s left out.  

When 3’s Interfere with 2’s

Being “2” is what needy people long for. “No one else will ever get in the way.” That’s the idea. But life isn’t like that. There are always others. Mom, Dad, friends, or lovers. Intolerable “3’s.” Roman watched his mom favor Rocky, at least that’s what he thought. And, Rocky went off and loved other guys. Other guys? He wasn’t mean because Rocky was gay. It was because Roman wanted to be the only “guy” Rocky loved. His twin. He didn’t want him to love someone else.

In a 3-some, watching from outside, someone is always left out, painfully excluded. That’s what started the whole story in Twinless. Not just the reason Rocky died. First, Dennis was kicked out by his stepfather. Unwanted. Rejected. Maybe because he was gay.  But also, by his mom, who chose her husband. Not Dennis. She didn’t defend him. His mom left him alone. Always alone.

But then there was Rocky. Dennis became lost in a dream, a connection he longed for, a love he wanted to believe was real. Rocky ghosting him must have been his stepfather telling him not to come home. He buried his anger. It turned to self-hate. After Roman beats him up, he asks, “Who are you?”  Dennis asks, “What version of me? I hate most of them. But the version of me that was just hanging out with you, I wanted to be him all the time.” Dennis felt that same way with Rocky.

So, when he arrives at Rocky’s door and sees him walking out with George (Chris Perfetti), his dream is shattered. It’s as it’s always been. And, this sets Dennis off. Left on the outside of a 3-some once again, by Rocky and his obvious boyfriend, unleashes Dennis’s old rage. 

Flying into Rages & Guilty Regret

Sometimes, when you’re helpless and hurt, a new hurt triggers too many old ones, even if you don’t know it. Then, it’s hard to control your pent-up rage. That’s what happens to Dennis and Roman. They’re mirrors of each other. Theirs is a twinship in what they need and cannot control.

Dennis’s out-of-control need caused him to go after Rocky, try to run him down in a crosswalk with another man, and yell, “Fuck you.” When Rocky came towards him to explain, he was hit by a car. Dennis tries to tell Roman, “It was my fault,” but he can’t. So, Dennis creates a story of his “twin Dean,” who died because he was relentless in his need for him. Really, relentless in trying to get Rocky’s attention, after no return texts or calls, hurt at being ghosted, and then angry at Rocky’s rejection. Just when he felt, on that unexpected night, he fell in love.

“My last words were: ‘Fuck you,’” says Roman, who felt the same when Rocky left Moscow. Left him behind for another life, college, Japan, and work in Portland. Dennis was left for another man. 

Guilt is what they’re both left with. Guilt and a persecuted conscience. For things that can’t be taken back. Roman’s jealousy. Lashing out at Rocky about being gay, calling him a “faggot.” Later, he beats up young guys who call him and Dennis “faggots,” not for himself but to make it up to Rocky. Sobbing, he cries: “I was scared that if we weren’t the same, I wouldn’t know who I was.”

Dennis has his jealousy, too, and guilt for the hate directed at Rocky. For Rocky’s death, in Twinless. It’s also his guilt for hating all those who hurt him in the past, and left him hating himself.

Love for Roman, But Not for Dennis

Roman had Rocky’s love, so he’s able to accept Marcie’s. But with Marcie, he wants to “twin-up” again in a closeness like “the everything” he had with Rocky, sharing the top bunk because they were scared to be alone. Dennis is afraid to be alone, too. But his friends are mostly fantasies. Dennis says he answered a call from an unknown number. They baked strawberry shortcake together. But the next morning, when he went to get another piece, he forgot it was a dream.

Dennis’s dreams don’t come true in Twinless. He can’t let people like him. Roman can open up to love. Not Dennis. He’s forged a hard, bitter shell that keeps people away so they won’t hurt him. We see what happens when he lets his guard down with Rocky. Later, he opens up with Roman. But how does that go? Roman falls in love with Marci, and, once again, Dennis is the third wheel.

When he’s finally brave enough to fess up to Roman about his lies, Roman flies into a blind rage and beats him up. Dennis pleads desperately that he doesn’t want to lose his best friend. He’s somewhat aware that he’s ravenous; one of his lies is that he ate his “twin” in utero, a twin who “vanished.” Yes, he does want to eat Roman up, devour him, and then he’d be the “only one.”

Being hurt as a child is traumatic. Loneliness eats at you. Leaves you hungry; sometimes overly hopeful. Inside, you’re desperately needy. If you get hurt, you wall off, as if you want nothing. Roman is the one friend Dennis has ever had. But lies don’t make a friendship. Nor does the desperation that led to those lies: a desperation driven by being unable to live a separate life.

Living A Separate Life (or, Not)

When your loneliness feels desperate and scary, it’s hard to want a separate life, let alone live one. That’s true for Roman and Dennis. Sure, Roman has Marcie. But Marcie has her own life.

Here Roman is – living with Marcie but feeling alone. Even twins feel alone, remember? Especially being Twinless.  And, Marcie sets her boundaries. No. Roman can’t go to Girl’s Night with her. “We talked about that,” she reminds him. A separate life means you can spend time alone, with yourself, and enjoy it (like Marcie and her puzzle). Marcie has no desire to be attached at the hip.

The problem is: When you can’t be alone with yourself, it’s because you see all the value in someone else (“He’s the good twin”). This is self-hate and feeling “less than.” If you believe someone else has (or is) everything, you imagine that you’re nothing without them.

That’s a hard one for traumatized, lonely people. Dennis is especially prone to self-hate; Roman has some. So, they tried for a forced separateness, not being too needy, even though they are. Like saying the exact opposite when asked, “Do you want separate checks or together?”

But the hunger is still there. For all that Dennis wasn’t, he was a good friend to Roman. And, Roman misses him, even though that’s hard to admit. Was it his desperate need that drew him to Dennis? Or, was there something about Dennis that (mostly) Dennis cannot see?

So, on this night, as Twinless ends, when they don’t know what’s in store for them as friends, Dennis and Roman order a sandwich and say, “Can we get a box to go?” at the same time. Is this a sign of hope that they’ll be friends? Or is it just that neither wants a separate life...?