As If

Waidner (Corey Fah Does Social Mobility) pays homage to the Beckett Trilogy with a spectacular and surreal story of doppelgängers trading places in modern-day London. Aubrey Lewis, an actor, is out of work at 46 and grieving his wife, Laurie, who died three years ago from cancer. One day, an unemployed man named Lindsey Korine mysteriously enters his flat “like he owned the place,” having followed Lewis after noting they bear a striking resemblance to each other. Korine learns that Lewis had a role in the long-running TV series People Live, People Die, People Live as If They Were Already Dead, which followed sleuths A. Smythe and B. Smith, each hired to spy on the other, an “existential feedback loop which the series exploited for tragicomic effect.” Lewis played Smythe’s partner, C. Schmidt. Lewis and Korine argue when Lewis announces he’ll refuse to audition for the starring role in a new show centered on a character based on Schmidt. Ultimately, Korine goes in his place and gets the part. Weeks pass as Korine settles into Lewis’s life, while elsewhere, a happier Lewis finds purpose as a stay-at-home husband to Korine’s wife, also named Laurie, and raises the couple’s young son. As they struggle to keep control of their new roles, each man becomes desperate and more violent, fearing the other will come back and reclaim his identity for good. Waidner’s delightfully absurd story offers deep insights into the lengths people go to escape their lives. This tale of ambition, loss, and desire for purpose is one of a kind. Agent: Tracy Bohan, Wylie Agency. (June)