This is a thriller/mystery/horror/fantasy/drama (take your pick!) about a painfully shy 17 year old girl in rich-kid America as she negotiates life with her lack of confidence, generally being downtrodden by most around her, especially bullied at school - and by her overpowering, controlling father. However, help is at hand in order to wrench her out of her troubles by a confident version of her who lives in the mirror!
The reveals show us in the end why her dad's like he is, how there's a doppelganger of her in the mirror, why her mother has nightmares about the time that she gave birth to the girl, called Maria, and goes some way to explain why Airam, the girl in the mirror, is there. She pops up one day to shock Maria when Maria finds a ultrasound photo of her mum's stomach, early on in the film so not a spoiler, with what appears to be two humans in the womb.
India Eisley plays Maria/Airam very neatly indeed within the mad plotline/story, a creation of writer/director Assaf Bernstein, in what is largely a one-woman show. The rest of the cast tag along but with nowhere near as much screen time as her. Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite) plays depressed mum and Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter) the plastic surgeon dad, very capably both - and Penelope Mitchell (The Vampire Diaries) as the closest thing Maria has to a friend, Lily.
Downtrodden Maria's life is falling apart then, and Airam offers her, from the other side of the mirror, a switch (a bit like The Substance, I guess) in order to sort it out for her. She has to go through something of a ritual in order to execute the switch, which needs to be done again if they're ever going to switch back, after Airam helps Maria out. No points for guessing the plotline there, then! Especially if you've seen The Substance.
The film then turns into something of a revenge story as Airam, on behalf of Maria, sets out to right the wrongs which have been done to her. She ends up being ruthless in the task, no holds barred - which is where things switch toward the gruesome/slasher/horror. Once the backstory comes out about the origins of the birth event, there's even more work for Airam to do, whilst Maria is stuck in the mirror wishing by now that she'd never agreed to it! You can imagine! There's plenty of nudity thrown in as India Eisley bares all (as Airam) and some of the cast around her too, as she gets naughtier and naughtier in her quest to help Maria! Some might be concerned about this as the character (not actress) is supposed to be under 18.
It's a dark and well-paced thriller, decidedly far-fetched, of course, but the reveals are well-placed in the running time, 1 hour and 45 minutes, as we head towards the conclusion. I wasn't clock-watching. India Eisley is convincing in the lead roles which keeps the attention between disrobings! I guess it could be described as supernatural, but it's certainly not ghostly/creepy in that sense - more like a thriller - and there's no silly jump-scares. I enjoyed it and you can too via various streaming services.
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