Two Dash One One

Two Dash One One is one of those very little movies that make up the bulk of Tubi’s selection. There are only two characters in the film, clearly some budget restraints and apparently, this movie was made during Covid. Because Two Dash One One uses its limited means to tell a high concept story, this makes it stand out from the similarly available films of this price point available on everyone’s favourite free with ads streaming app.

Marnie walks away from a car crash without a scratch on her. Encountering no one, she arrives at a quaint rental cabin. When she enters, she meets her girlfriend, April. Apparently, April has been there for what feels like weeks. Marnie and April quickly realize that they’re dead and that they’re in some sort of purgatory. Marnie tries to track the passage time and make sense of their often senseless existence. Meanwhile, April seems happy to treat their current state as a welcome break from the world. But time continues to pass and even April begins to question, what’s next for them?

Major props to the filmmakers of this movie for choosing this plot. Will Two Dash One One stand up against the all-time great films about death and the afterlife? Maybe not. But especially for a small budget indie, I really welcomed a more novel approach to the stories one can tell under those conditions. This goes double for the Covid time frame. Two actors and one location is a bit of a standard of this time of filmmaking. And I’ve seen ones like Lockdown Lovers that deal with the situation directly as well as ones like Let’s Meet Halfway which directly avoid it by setting their film in the 90’s. Two Dash One One has all the themes of the Covid lockdown but finds a more original story that also uses that theme. I’m tired of seeing anything about Covid. But stories about death? Yeah, I can watch those forever.

The film is also very good at being a story that is about a lesbian couple but isn’t “about” lesbianism. None of Marnie and April’s problems relate to their sexuality. Death is inclusive like that. Even their conversations don’t really acknowledge it. Marnie and April’s gender and sexuality aren’t relevant. They aren’t female characters or queer characters, they’re just characters. This film could play out exactly the same with any variation of the gender of its two leads. Being a lesbian or being a woman is one aspect of a larger being, whether they be fictional or real. Two Dash One One is a story that allows these larger aspects to take the forefront by playing the queer relationship as a stable fact that isn’t worth exploring in the face of a timeless purgatory and the nature of death itself.

Admittedly, it takes a while to get sucked into the film. Marnie and April can be a little flat as characters. And for as comparatively novel as the concept is, it’s not like it’s completely fresh. Even within WLW film canon, we’ve got No Exit and its various adaptions. So, Two Dash One One isn’t the best thing ever. But by the end, I was sucked into the story and cared about these individual characters. More than that though, I felt a sense of respect and admiration for the filmmakers for taking their limited means and doing something a little more out there and a little more fresh.

Overall rating: 5.7/10

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