I came across this movie on Netflix streaming and I am glad I did. It is a superb movie with some surprising developments. It has a "Downton Abbey" sensibility to it, a privileged family in post-war England losing its grip on the castle and what it takes to afford it.
The conceit of the story is that two men, unrelated to each other, meet by accident in a pub, they both notice that the other looks exactly like himself. Just as if they were identical twins.
Matthew Rhys does an excellent job playing the two men, John the school teacher who had recently lost his job and Johnny the aristocrat who was not well-liked by his own family, and seemed desperate to escape his situation.
(As an aside of sorts, I have long been fascinated with identical twins, and the studies of identical twins separated at birth growing up in different situations. This is not the case here but my scientific mind had to suspend disbelief because two men who look so similarly that family and friends would not recognize the difference and they could not unless they were identical twins. But, as it turns out the dog and an old friend did notice the difference.)
So the two men visit and get drunk, the next morning John wakes up to find his clothes and identification missing, Johnny has run away with them. But the car driver, knowing what a reprobate Johnny is, dismisses it all and gives John a ride back to the castle, fully assuming he is Johnny.
So that is really where the movie takes off, as John gets into the family, struggles to find his way around and discover all the old family politics, and who were lovers in secret. He ends up being a better person that Johnny ever could, becomes a valued family member, helps get the family glass manufacturing business back on track.
Good movie.
SPOILERS for my recollection: After John makes progress Johnny resurfaces in secret, he is after his wife's money which he can only get if she gives birth to a male heir, or she dies. He tries, unsuccessfully, to get her to take a lethal morphine dose, but she is saved at the hospital. John and Johnny have an encounter, dastardly Johnny intends to shoot John, dump his body into the furnaces, and return to resume his role in the family. But John gets the jump, Johnny is killed in the fight, his body incinerated. Back at the house John continues to become a family member, and he impregnates Johnny's wife, we can assume it will be a boy.
The conceit of the story is that two men, unrelated to each other, meet by accident in a pub, they both notice that the other looks exactly like himself. Just as if they were identical twins.
Matthew Rhys does an excellent job playing the two men, John the school teacher who had recently lost his job and Johnny the aristocrat who was not well-liked by his own family, and seemed desperate to escape his situation.
(As an aside of sorts, I have long been fascinated with identical twins, and the studies of identical twins separated at birth growing up in different situations. This is not the case here but my scientific mind had to suspend disbelief because two men who look so similarly that family and friends would not recognize the difference and they could not unless they were identical twins. But, as it turns out the dog and an old friend did notice the difference.)
So the two men visit and get drunk, the next morning John wakes up to find his clothes and identification missing, Johnny has run away with them. But the car driver, knowing what a reprobate Johnny is, dismisses it all and gives John a ride back to the castle, fully assuming he is Johnny.
So that is really where the movie takes off, as John gets into the family, struggles to find his way around and discover all the old family politics, and who were lovers in secret. He ends up being a better person that Johnny ever could, becomes a valued family member, helps get the family glass manufacturing business back on track.
Good movie.
SPOILERS for my recollection: After John makes progress Johnny resurfaces in secret, he is after his wife's money which he can only get if she gives birth to a male heir, or she dies. He tries, unsuccessfully, to get her to take a lethal morphine dose, but she is saved at the hospital. John and Johnny have an encounter, dastardly Johnny intends to shoot John, dump his body into the furnaces, and return to resume his role in the family. But John gets the jump, Johnny is killed in the fight, his body incinerated. Back at the house John continues to become a family member, and he impregnates Johnny's wife, we can assume it will be a boy.