That’s Not Me (Gregory Erdstein, 2017) Australia/USA

Viewed at the Metro 4 theaters during SBIFF 2017.

A quirky Australian comedy about twin sister actors that are both trying to make it. The opening scene is one of the sisters (both played by Alice Foulcher), Polly, practicing her acceptance speech for an award. When the camera pulls out, we see she is sitting on the toilet speaking into a can of air freshener.

Written by husband and wife team; Alice Foulcher and Gregory Erdstein. The story follows Polly and her attempts at acting success and staying true to her art. However, the choices she makes ends up causing her sister, Amy, to have the success she so desires. To complicate the situation further, the sisters’ parents seem to favor Amy and her success.

Meanwhile, Polly is constantly being mistaken for her more successful and higher profile sister. She even lands a great audition for a film but during the casting, it is discovered that they have the wrong sister. All this frustrated Polly immensely. However, Polly’s friend Ariel, played by Belinda Misevski figures out how to capitalize on Amy’s success by getting Polly all kinds of favors at local shops and restaurants.

Polly goes out to a swanky bar dressed in a gorgeous golden gown that was given to her by a high-end shop who thought she was Amy. When Ariel no-shows their ladies’ night excursion, Polly runs into Amy’s ex-boyfriend. He mistakes Polly for Amy and she decides to go with the flow and goes home with him until she is discovered the next day as being Amy’s unknown sister.

Eventually, Polly is dropped from the talent agent’s role. As she gets further and further away from her dream, she gets fired from her job at the local movie theatre. At this point, she rashly decides to fly to Los Angeles with no real plans on what she will do when gets there. She arrives at a girl’s apartment that she barely knows from an acting class in Australia. Polly realizes that she no clue how to make it in Hollywood and calls her mom to help her back home.

Polly moves back into her parents’ house and Amy comes over to eat dinner. Amy pretends to want Polly to pretend to be her. When Polly takes the bait, Amy mocks her and rubs in her success.

The film was okay. It was enjoyable but not brilliant. The script was good with some funny jokes and movie references and lots of mockery of making it in the movies. I felt the acting was good but not exceptional.

One of my biggest critiques is, Alice Foulcher is not pretty enough, in my opinion, to make in Hollywood as a young leading lady. I mentioned this in another review and someone disagreed with me. But this thought ran through my mind over and over while watching it.

The cinematography was good too but again, not amazing. This is the first feature film for many of them. And as a first effort, it was very good. They used their friends they met from film school and their friends.

I hope they get some kind of distribution.