When an eccentric and insecure young woman is mistaken for her dead identical twin, she seizes the chance to leave her pathetic existence behind and assume her sister's life. Through this absurd masquerade as "the pretty one" she finally learns to value her own identity

The Pretty One is a pleasant indie "dramedy" cooked with the habitual ingredients from the genre: a simple screenplay, but not lacking of some deepness; funny characters who are too picturesque to exist in the real world; and a narrative sensibility which cunningly occupies the intersection between art-house cinema and the commercial one. That description might sound a bit cynical, but it doesn't darken my appreciation for the various pros of The Pretty One, which I liked pretty much despite some forced details from the screenplay and its kinda cloying manufacture. To start with, the performances from Zoe Kazan and Jake Johnson are very good. I always like those actors' work, even though they tend to play the same character over and over again (Kazan, adorable "Phoebe", and Johnson, adorable loser). But, as long as they keep bringing such good works in those roles, I will keep enjoying their performances. Kazan and Johnson have a perfect chemistry with each other, something which helps to cover some weak details from the screenplay. For example, the premise feels occasionally improbable, even though it's raised with enough logic in order to accept it for the sake of entertainment. After all, The Pretty One doesn't aspire to the raw realism from Hesher or Smashed (to put a pair of indie examples), but it occupies the idealized universe from films such as In Your Eyes and Juno, where the characters are sublimations of narrative archetypes, and the dialogs are impossibly eloquent and colorful. But the artifice works because the emotions feel real, and because of that, The Pretty One survives some not very credible coincidences, forced revelations and moments of a doubtful humor. Besides, in order to season the recipe a little bit, screenwriter Jeneé LaMarque (who was also the director) makes sporadic explorations to the meaning of identity, and its narrow (and sometimes contradictory) relationship with our public perception. Is it more important to know who we are, or who the people think we are? That's an interesting concept which brings a slight philosophical basis to the film. In conclusion, I recommend The Pretty One with confidence, because despite not being something great, it kept me very entertained, it made me think a bit and, for the first time in a long while, I was genuinely interested in the romantic aspect.