It is said everybody has a doppelganger somewhere. The 1969 movie Journey to the Far Side of the Sun is considered the first major live-action film about doppelgangers. More recent doppelganger movies include 2019’s Us and 2024’s The Watchers, but even 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine could be considered a doppelganger movie with all the multiverse variants.
Then, on January 3, 2025, Some Other Woman dropped On Demand through Brainstorm Media after an exclusive Regal Cinemas release nearly a year earlier. Directed by Joel David Moore (Youth in Oregon 2016, Hide and Seek 2021), it stars Amanda Crew (Silicon Valley series, Freaks 2018), Tom Felton (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone 2001, Rise of the Planet of the Apes 2011), Ashley Greene (Twilight 2008, The Immaculate Room 2022), Brooke Lyons (Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins 2008, 2 Broke Girls series), and Rick Fox (He Got Game 1998, The Retirement Plan 2023), among others.
Eve (Crew) was promised a few months on a tropical island for her husband’s (Felton) work. Years later, unable to build the family they wanted, reality starts to unravel when she encounters a strange woman (Greene) who begins taking over her life piece by piece.
Right from the start, you dealing with metaphors. In Some Other Woman’s case, water is the metaphor. How? Well, let us take the vastness of the ocean. The island and the open ocean symbolize the prison Eve feels she is bound to and the uncertainty and potential for change in her life without a clear direction after being indefinitely uprooted.
Eve’s doppelganger first appears coming from the water after we see Eve supposedly drown, although she’s telling the story of another wife in a voiceover monologue. When Eve sees the other woman in the water, it can be interpreted as a distorted reflection of her own identity, representing her sense of self-loss and the confusion she is experiencing. Also, we never see the tide come in; it is always going out. The movement of water can signify the forces pulling Eve towards a different life, representing the allure of the other woman to her husband, Peter, and the potential unraveling of her marriage.
The sole setting is the island (the Cayman Islands), which makes us feel claustrophobic and helpless despite Eve having friends with things to do. Amanda Crew convincingly portrays Eve’s slip into madness. The question is, did we see Eve drown in the beginning? The rest of the cast seems to play off her but then does not. The third act is an interesting conundrum.
Overall, between critics and general audiences, opinions on Some Other Woman are split. Arguments for all sides can be seen, but Some Other Woman is not a straightforward movie, and for those who like doppelganger movies, this is a fun addition. That is why Cryptic Rock gives Some Other Woman 5 out of 5 stars.
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