Cross-Country Photoshoot with Indistinguishable Twins in Give Me Your Hand

Comments (0) By Nicolas Rapold Tuesday, Sep 8 2009

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Give Me Your Hand
Directed by Pascal-Alex Vincent
Strand Releasing
Opens September 11, Quad Cinema

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It's usually a dangerous sign when a director casting about for an idea gets fascinated by twins: For every Dead Ringers, there is a Twin Falls Idaho. Pascal-Alex Vincent's debut feature amounts to a cross-country photo shoot of two rustic, strapping teens, whose main distinguishing characteristics are that they're practically indistinguishable. Well, not entirely: Antoine (Alexandre Carril) does brood a bit more than Quentin (Victor Carril) on their catch-as-catch-can trek to attend their estranged mother's funeral in Spain, and Quentin gets a little more nooky. Runaways from Dad and his village bakery, the two day-labor on a farm for euros, roughhouse a lot, and challenge each other's nascent sexual identities through various alfresco adventures. The voyeuristic cavorting is the film's only real attempt at tapping the twins' mirror images for something deeper, and it's rendered futile by the Carril brothers' range: sullen to expressionless. (A prologue recounting their flight in wordless anime begs comparison.) A separation along the way cedes the spotlight to Antoine for a spell, during which Vincent's takes some final stabs at Van Sant–esque pretty-lost-boyism. The movie is most compelling when demonstrating the gorgeousness of the South of France—a truth that is always worth emphasizing, but was never really in dispute.