Coherence Could Be A Standout Indie Mindbender

By Nick Venable | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

coherence posterLet’s get two things out of the way right quick. First, I’m pretty late in getting to a story about James Ward Byrkit’s upcoming sci-fi thriller Coherence; not only did the film premiere a few weeks in Austin at this year’s Fantastic Fest, but the poster and teaser trailer shown here were released weeks before that. Second, I’m gauging much of my optimism about this film from the reviews I read by those who got to watch it at FF, since I really didn’t know what this film was about when first hearing about it. Also, even the most negative critiques still made it sound like one of the most interesting films of the year. So if you came into this aware of the movie and were hoping that there was a more recent trailer of the film, I apologize.

For everyone else, though, let me tell you a little bit about this twisty little flick. Written by Byrkit from a story he and Alex Manugian came up with, Coherence follows an evening dinner between four couples that sort of get along. It takes a turn for the mysteriously bizarre once Miller’s Comet passes over Earth. Technology goes haywire and relationships aren’t what they seem to be. The plot turns are supposed to be plentiful, and carefully laid out within the script, where initially cookie-cutter characters are revealed to be more. And though all of the reviews I read told of the first twist, I’ll leave that out until after the teaser below, so anyone who doesn’t want to know can just avoid reading about it. The clip features some of the table’s comet-themed repartee before the random madness kicks in while “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” plays. It’s quite an effective manner of inducing a surreal sense of paranoia.

Crazy right? I can’t tell if that guy punches that woman in the face or if that’s just a weird way of editing it. Not that it matters either way, but it’s nice to be interested in a small detail like that. I never think, “I wonder what happens to the people’s jobs in that building that just exploded,” when watching a trailer where a building explodes. Now beware the mini-spoiler.

It appears that the comet has wreaked a particular kind of havoc on the characters, and they find out that there’s a house just down the road with duplicate versions of themselves. The doubles thriller Plus One also came out recently, while I’m anxiously awaiting Richard Ayoade’s The Double and Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy, both of which deal with a lead character’s doppelgänger appearing. I guess that’s somehow a new thing. I like it.

Coherence‘s cast of familiars includes Nicholas Brendon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Elizabeth Gracen (Highlander), Maury Sterling (Homeland), Lauren Maher (the Pirates of the Carribean series), Emily Baldoni (Automotive), screenwriter Lorene Scarfaria (Seeking a Friend for the End of the World), Hugo Armstrong (OK, Good) and Manugian himself, who was a voice in Rango with Byrkit.

So think of it as a less funny Futurama episode, or a more detailed Twilight Zone, but keep thinking about it, and we’ll let you know when this film finds a larger release date.