Living with Yourself, Another Clone Story?

“Living with Yourself” was released in 2019 on Netflix, and starring Ant-Man Paul Rudd. On first glance, it’s a typical sci-fi story. The leading character Miles was a middle-age man struggling with his life. Under the advice of his colleague, he decided to visit a mysterious spa to “be happy” again. But soon he realized, he had been cloned. A happier version Miles was standing right in front of him, optimistic towards everything, and may take over his life, his work, and his wife.

The plot sounds a bit “Black Mirror”, isn’t it? Actually there was indeed a sentimental clone story “Be Right Back” in “Black Mirror” season 2 episodes 1. Assuming we all remember the 2005 sci-fi thriller “The Island” starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson? Or an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “The 6th Day” in 2010, a time when cloned sheep Dolly was still a phenomenon?

It’s 2021, we’ve seen so many clone topic films. Then what makes “Living with Yourself” refreshing? For starters, the narratives kept changing to multiple perspectives during the 8 episodes. Second, the director/ writer Timothy Greenber gave audience a tricky question, does the new one must outweigh the old? Finally, Paul Rudd really took out all he got from 27 years of acting up to full strengths. Let me explain more.

This is usually the case when it comes to shopping for new clothes, new electrics, and sometimes in the case of a relationship. The fun thing about “Living with Yourself” is that we see things not only from two Miles’ angles, but also from his/ their wife Kate (starring Ireland actress Aisling Bea, who has a lot Rachel Weisz vibe).

Then it became clear that there was no bad guy. Original Miles, although cynical and uncaring sometimes, was after all a simple guy who just wanted to be happy again. Even though he was provoked to act (ex. finally visited the fertility clinic) after feeling threatened by cloned self. Miles eventually realized what he missed for a long time and found the way to win it back.

New (cloned) Miles is apparently more positive, more creative, and more grateful to everything in life. Hence he seemed to gain more affection immediately by all. However, new Miles was so eager to win over Kate that he even considered killing his original self. In the end, he realized that even with all the memories and better behavior, he couldn’t recreate years of couple chemistry. So he was willing to let it go.

Kate, the wife who was reluctantly dragged into this dilemma, was so convinced that new Miles should be gone when the cloning first came to light. But as original Miles kept disappeared her, Kate “cheated” with new Miles. The twist kicked in, she realized that she couldn’t ask Miles to stay as the man she married, cuz she changed too. The new one isn’t always better. Sometimes all we need is the original one that accompanied us all these times.

“Living with Yourself” is Paul Rudd’s first starring TV role. I have to confess, I never knew he can act so well! I first saw Paul Rudd from an old 1995 YA film, “Clueless”, an adaptation from Jane Austen’s famous novel Emma. Later he was known as Phoebe’s boyfriend Mike from “Friends”. He then took a couple supporting roles. From 2015, he became famous again, as Marvel’s Ant-Man.

For a time I saw Paul Rudd as a nice, baby-face guy who seems to be happy to play supporting roles as such. But in “Living with Yourself”, he successfully played every role so well: the younger caring-husband Miles, the old bitter Miles, the growing new Miles, the new Miles pretending to be original Miles. It’s the same actor, nevertheless those roles were all showing completely different characters! That’s brilliant acting.

Cloning is always a controversial issue. Due to regulation, so far there’s no public human cloning cases. I think it’s good that this topic is filmed. By watching the drama we would feel more relate to, and gets us thinking the moral issues hidden in the comedy. In this sense, “Living with Yourself” is a bit like a philosophy debate in another TV show “The Good Place”. You can find my comment on the show here.

Another interesting argument, can we be a happier version of ourselves if we didn’t physically experience all the things happened? Can we be free from the grudge and dissatisfaction via magical technical invention one day? And what’s more important, if answers to both questions are yes, do we wanna?

Finally, I would like to share a quirky fun song in the show that left quite some impression. It was composed by talented British electronica musician Anna Meredith. A bit Hans Zimmer style, but funky in its own way. If you like her music, can check another longer footage covered by NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert here.

Disclaimer: copyrights of all the pictures in this article belong to Netflix.

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