Mr. Movie: ‘The One I Love’ is the best movie no one saw in 2014

The Battelle Film Club’s 2015 fall series opens with The One I Love. It starts at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 11.

I will introduce the film, and this one is worth a view. I named it the best film nobody saw in 2014. However, that high praise comes with complications. In the more than 24 years of reviewing movies, I’ve never found one I couldn’t review. Until now. Anything I say about the plot of The One I Love ruins the movie and the fun.

All comments are spoilers but — treading carefully — here’s what I can give you.

Mark Duplass (Tammy) is Ethan. Golden Globe winner Elisabeth Moss (Top of the Lake, Mad Men) is his wife, Sophie. They are at a rough spot in their marriage. It’s counseling or divorce. They decide to give it one last shot and check in with a counselor played by Ted Danson. He sends them to a swank house in the hills and to what they think is a marriage repair encounter.

That’s all the further I can take it. And it’s frustrating. Critics comment on movies. So I’ll say Duplass has some fun with his character, as Moss does with hers. He nicely bounces between smooth slick to romantic, to stone cold and withdrawn. She does the same. They’re great performances.

As for the movie and what I can’t say about it? It’s a conundrum I covered with Duplass — who is also the film’s executive producer — a year ago when the movie did a limited run in art houses across the country. I asked him if this worked as a description of his film and not give anything away? It’s a romantic comedy that ends up twisted and disturbing like something Twilight Zone creator, host and writer Rod Serling would have written in the 1960s.

He agreed and said that’s as much as can be said. And it’s really all you need.

This story was originally published September 9, 2015 at 7:56 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie: ‘The One I Love’ is the best movie no one saw in 2014."