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Hey, do you know you look identical to Elvis?

(Review) In The Identical, poor Ryan battles a bit of an identity crisis

Nature vs. nurture. The super-hyper connection of those coming from the same egg. Follow daddy’s dream or go your own way. Cover songs or originals. These time-tested topics are explored in the oddly interesting new release The Identical, directed by Dustin Marcellino and written by Howard Klausner. The time period piece starts with a poor couple in the Depression-era south, the husband unable to find work with his wife about to give birth. Black-and-white cinematography helped the small late Saturday matinee crowd feel his pain when the husband stumbles into a tent revival the night his twins are born. The sermon by a hard-luck preacher and the way he points to his unfortunate wife — oh, their woe, for she has just miscarried again and the doctor has warned them to give up that dream or put her life at risk — gives this man an idea and a flicker of hope for some chance of economic survival for his young family. Using God and prayer as his witness, he somehow talks his wife into it, the preacher and his wife into it, and off the story goes into a colorful future. The preacher, played by a slightly ill-suited but extremely hard-working Ray Liotta, wants this teenage boy to follow into his calling of ministry. His wife, played by a far more comfortably southern Ashley Judd, isn’t totally down with that, but isn’t up with battling with hubby, either. The son, he wants to sing, and not just in the church. He wants to make this new style rock-soul-R ‘n’ B music. This holy name doesn’t get dropped until later in the film, but you know, music like Elvis.
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