#Movie coherence movie#

Part of what’s oh so enjoyable about going in blind is trying to piece together what’s coming next from the few clues you can uncover early on. Byrkit’s story is unmistakably ambitious, and there’s no questioning that he follows through on his premise’s mind-bending promise, but many of the answers to Coherence‘s mysteries are cached like easter eggs throughout its length. I need to probably see Coherence three or four more times before I can say for certain that I understand it completely. In particular, Foxler, the closest thing that Coherence has to a lead, impresses by keeping Em relatable even as she embarks down a very dark path.

The acting is terrific all around as well, with each player turning in a nuanced and emotive performance. As strange as that may sound, the film benefits from it, with the on-the-fly production adding a strong sense of naturalism. Suffice to say, you’ll want to go home afterwards and immediately draw out the story in Primer-style levels of detail in an attempt to make sense of it all.Ĭoherence didn’t have a screenplay – Byrkit shot the film consecutively over five nights, giving the actors cards specific to their characters each morning that explained what stories they needed to work into the scenes and what their character’s motivations were. To say any more about the complex moral dilemmas that emerge as a result of their discovery would be to disrespect the greatest truth about Coherence -the less you know, the better. When the lights go out, the dinner party takes a turn for the strange, as the characters see a house lit up down the street and some wander outside to investigate, only to discover that the comet has caused their reality to splinter in fascinating and deeply unsettling ways. All of them have goals that didn’t pan out, plans that never came to fruition, and that feeling of discontent hangs heavy above their heads. Though they wear taut smiles and revel in the refined nature of their gathering, none of them are particularly thrilled with how their lives have turned out. Finally, there’s the tall, hot-tempered Hugh (Hugo Armstrong) and his wife Beth (Elizabeth Gracen), who comments on the bad energy emanating from a “door to nowhere” in the house and complains about the lack of feng shui.Īll of these characters are so realistic that you will have encountered variations on each and every one of them at some point. Kevin’s “vixen-y” ex-girlfriend Laurie (Lauren Maher) is also in attendance with her new hook-up Amir (Alex Manugian), which is Em is none too pleased about, especially when Kevin adds to the tension by recounting a funny anecdote about her. Actor Mike (Nicholas Brendon), who had a lead role on Roswell (not really – his protagonist Joe was invented for this movie) is dating the meek Lee (Lorene Scafaria), and he spends a lot of time seething that one of their friends who watched every episode doesn’t remember him. There’s dancer Em (Emily Foxler), who’s quietly unhappy and in an ostensibly healthy relationship with Kevin (Maury Sterling). The one common thread linking all eight characters is perhaps their normality. As Coherence opens, hints of the comet’s influence can be seen in broken phone screens and disrupted signals. Our protagonists are eight friends who come together for a dinner party on the night of an astronomical anomaly – “Miller’s Comet,” which is passing closer to Earth than ones recorded in the past.

It’s hard to talk about Coherence without spoiling its many fascinating twists and turns, but I’ll do my best. It’s easily one of the most thought-provoking and deeply engrossing cinematic experiences of the year – not to mention a highly auspicious debut for writer-director James Ward Byrkit.

#Movie coherence movie#

Like the better episodes of The Twilight Zone, Christopher Nolan’s Memento and Shane Carruth’s Primer before it, indie sci-fi Coherence is a brilliantly staged and sharply written mindscrew of a movie that left me equal parts giddy, chilled and bewildered.