Second watch, and *wow*. Can easily say this would be among my favourite films released in 2013, making it the fourth sci-fi movie in the top five (alongside Her, Under the Skin, and Upstream Colour - the exception being Inside Llewyn Davis). Its greatest trick is fooling the audience into believing that there are only two houses for at least an hour, until Hugh shows up with a different plaster and we realise all previous assumptions made were false. (At around 45 minutes, the first hint is made when Beth asks Lee where she got the vase in the kitchen from, seemingly for the second time that night - Emily's reaction shows she picks up on this, formulating the "roulette wheel" theory.) As such, the Schrödinger explanation felt less pandering and expository this time around, once you realise that the proposition is wrong (or, at least, not all-encompassing): the decoherence has not resulted in just two states, dead or alive, but a whole multiverse of infinite possibilities. Like the attempt to explain the events as a drug-induced mass hallucination, this is just a theory - which is what makes this so entertaining on first watch, as we are more or less on the same level of understanding as the characters throughout; on subsequent viewings, these theories can be dismissed and one can instead marvel at the ingenuity of the script, which allows three or four different versions of our protagonists to be on screen before we even realise there are any more than two.
Primarily a parable of choice: the multitude of possible outcomes in life is paramount to the story, as we try to distinguish the different realities by whether Hugh has a "regular band-aid" or a cloth one, if the glowsticks are red, blue, or green; which of those three colours the marker is, what die roll each person got, whether the glass we later see being cleaned is cracked or not, whether Hugh's phone screen is likewise broken or not, whether the supposedly unique box contains a ping pong paddle, oven mitt, coaster, stapler, napkin, or monkey; et cetera. These countless decisions and random chances which we face in life make lasting impacts upon us - in one reality, Kevin is a caring boyfriend who gets sentimental when shown Em's ring; in another, he has no reaction to seeing it and cheats on her with Laurie. (In another, he is still together with Laurie, and Emily appears to be the subject of discussion as the "crazy one".) Mike is a fully recovered alcoholic in the first instance we see him, but later is far more erratic and drinks heavily.
Above all, the thesis of the film is that these choices are final and cannot be overturned - Emily, our hero (being the one character who we follow without changing into a slightly altered-reality version of his/herself), can never go back and accept the understudy role, or undo her hesitation at joining Kevin in Vietnam, even after window shopping for seemingly the perfect outcome; the key takeaway from the ambiguous conclusion is that Em does not get away with her attempted reset, that no matter how hard she tries, choices are irreversible. That ending is the only part I still struggle to make sense of, and this is intentional - the alt-Emily disappearing from the bathtub calls back her earlier story about the comet over Finland, where the evidence of a murder completely disappeared. But the ring doesn't vanish, and some other Emily calls Kevin, meaning coherence has not been wholly achieved. Again, a purposeful decision on the director's part to leave out a definitive answer, which I can accept as probably the right move.
Incredible to read that the dialogue is almost entirely improvised, as all the interactions feel so natural, and often quite funny: "We have wine, cheese, ketamine." "Thanks, coach." "If there are a million different realities, I have slept with your wife in every one of them." (This last one is another example of a character assuming something later implied to be false; in the final house, mention of Emily's understudy suggests her dancing career was a success in this reality, meaning that pre-comet events can also be different in separate dimensions. This may explain why, in the first house, Mike hadn't heard of Laurie, and Laurie didn't recognise Mike, despite claiming to be a fan of the show he supposedly starred in - everyone may have entered the "dark zone" when driving to the venue, resulting in separate realities from the very start.) Beyond the sci-fi and drama working simultaneously, there is a definite horror element too. The loud knock genuinely made me jump the first time I saw this, and the moment where they meet the doppelgängers is chilling. The existential finale rivals most psychological-horrors out there.
Obviously not without its flaws, many of which come with the ultra-low-budget territory: a couple instances of distracting ADR (especially Lee saying "Can we keep two guys here" around 30 minutes in), some mediocre camerawork which took me out of the experience for a few seconds, and the actor playing Laurie is occasionally not up to the standard of the others. My main issue is the music, which is too leaned upon to create tension when the strength of the material would carry it alone - the loudness of the score (when e.g. The group run away from their doubles, or when Em is hiding the body in the bathroom) feels counterproductive to what is already exciting action without the forced intensity. Not to mention it often sounds like a stock track; while I can now say for certain that I prefer this over (the borderline-masterpiece) Primer, it excites me just to think of how amazing Coherence would be with the composing talents of Shane Carruth. Latter is superior to the former though, both due to its emotional weight and unexpected accessibility - even when we aren't sure what exactly is happening, the film is easy to follow, as the characters are all uncertain too (cf. Carruth's film, where the viewer is always behind the protagonists and trying to piece together an exceedingly complex puzzle); this is what made me (falsely) assume that I had understood it just fine the first go around, and I'm sure that when I watch it again I'll realise how much I missed this time. Just a brilliant idea executed almost perfectly, and somehow so tight, with a runtime under 90 minutes. I love this movie.
Primarily a parable of choice: the multitude of possible outcomes in life is paramount to the story, as we try to distinguish the different realities by whether Hugh has a "regular band-aid" or a cloth one, if the glowsticks are red, blue, or green; which of those three colours the marker is, what die roll each person got, whether the glass we later see being cleaned is cracked or not, whether Hugh's phone screen is likewise broken or not, whether the supposedly unique box contains a ping pong paddle, oven mitt, coaster, stapler, napkin, or monkey; et cetera. These countless decisions and random chances which we face in life make lasting impacts upon us - in one reality, Kevin is a caring boyfriend who gets sentimental when shown Em's ring; in another, he has no reaction to seeing it and cheats on her with Laurie. (In another, he is still together with Laurie, and Emily appears to be the subject of discussion as the "crazy one".) Mike is a fully recovered alcoholic in the first instance we see him, but later is far more erratic and drinks heavily.
Above all, the thesis of the film is that these choices are final and cannot be overturned - Emily, our hero (being the one character who we follow without changing into a slightly altered-reality version of his/herself), can never go back and accept the understudy role, or undo her hesitation at joining Kevin in Vietnam, even after window shopping for seemingly the perfect outcome; the key takeaway from the ambiguous conclusion is that Em does not get away with her attempted reset, that no matter how hard she tries, choices are irreversible. That ending is the only part I still struggle to make sense of, and this is intentional - the alt-Emily disappearing from the bathtub calls back her earlier story about the comet over Finland, where the evidence of a murder completely disappeared. But the ring doesn't vanish, and some other Emily calls Kevin, meaning coherence has not been wholly achieved. Again, a purposeful decision on the director's part to leave out a definitive answer, which I can accept as probably the right move.
Incredible to read that the dialogue is almost entirely improvised, as all the interactions feel so natural, and often quite funny: "We have wine, cheese, ketamine." "Thanks, coach." "If there are a million different realities, I have slept with your wife in every one of them." (This last one is another example of a character assuming something later implied to be false; in the final house, mention of Emily's understudy suggests her dancing career was a success in this reality, meaning that pre-comet events can also be different in separate dimensions. This may explain why, in the first house, Mike hadn't heard of Laurie, and Laurie didn't recognise Mike, despite claiming to be a fan of the show he supposedly starred in - everyone may have entered the "dark zone" when driving to the venue, resulting in separate realities from the very start.) Beyond the sci-fi and drama working simultaneously, there is a definite horror element too. The loud knock genuinely made me jump the first time I saw this, and the moment where they meet the doppelgängers is chilling. The existential finale rivals most psychological-horrors out there.
Obviously not without its flaws, many of which come with the ultra-low-budget territory: a couple instances of distracting ADR (especially Lee saying "Can we keep two guys here" around 30 minutes in), some mediocre camerawork which took me out of the experience for a few seconds, and the actor playing Laurie is occasionally not up to the standard of the others. My main issue is the music, which is too leaned upon to create tension when the strength of the material would carry it alone - the loudness of the score (when e.g. The group run away from their doubles, or when Em is hiding the body in the bathroom) feels counterproductive to what is already exciting action without the forced intensity. Not to mention it often sounds like a stock track; while I can now say for certain that I prefer this over (the borderline-masterpiece) Primer, it excites me just to think of how amazing Coherence would be with the composing talents of Shane Carruth. Latter is superior to the former though, both due to its emotional weight and unexpected accessibility - even when we aren't sure what exactly is happening, the film is easy to follow, as the characters are all uncertain too (cf. Carruth's film, where the viewer is always behind the protagonists and trying to piece together an exceedingly complex puzzle); this is what made me (falsely) assume that I had understood it just fine the first go around, and I'm sure that when I watch it again I'll realise how much I missed this time. Just a brilliant idea executed almost perfectly, and somehow so tight, with a runtime under 90 minutes. I love this movie.