The rest of Fantastic Fest now has a tough act to follow, as a film showing on opening night totally blew me away. Coherence is an intellectual, metaphysical sci-fi thriller. I’m going to discuss its hook in the following review, so if you already trust me and will see Coherence on my recommendation alone, just stop reading. But, if you need more of a sell, this synopsis only opens up more of the possibilities that the film explores.
UPDATE: I’m so concerned with preserving every wonderful detail of Coherence that I’ve gone ahead and rewritten this review to be even more vague.
A group of friends get together on the night a comet is passing overhead. Pretty shortly after strange things begin occurring (we’re talking act one here), and they realize that they have been exposed to a sci-fi concept. I think knowing what that sci-fi concept is only makes the film more intriguing, but I don’t want to force you to know that ahead of time. Both intellectually and pragmatically, the film sets up the rules and reveals the fascinating subtle dilemmas this very big idea provokes.
Most science fiction movies use big special effects to sell their concept. These days it’s all CGI aliens, but even Back to the Future had flaming DeLorean tracks. Coherence has no visual effects, so it uses specific indicators of character and setting to identify what is going on. The subtle interactions our group of characters has with this force illustrates the subtle complications that can arise when one begins altering physical reality. What begins as a conceptual question evolves into an emotional one as each character faces what the existence of this force means to them in this fluid, flexible new reality.
The only aspect of Coherence’s premise that could require special effects is handled the old fashioned way, within camera editing rather than digital composite work. The presence of this sci-fi force is largely felt off camera, and by the characters themselves when they become unsure of where they even stand in this new reality. For an obscure intellectual sci-fi concept, these characters face it head on. As soon as they accept that this is happening, they start thinking of ways to protect themselves and combat it, and wonder whether they even have to.
The more complicated Coherence gets, the filmmakers and actors make it easy to keep track of what is going on. These are the specific indicators established throughout the course of the evening: Handwritten notes, band-aids, glow sticks and cracked phones. Imagine making a ping pong paddle a more important prop than any special effect on a big budget movie. Pay close attention because seemingly insignificant things a character does early on will pay off later.
Coherence is one of those improvised indie films and it certainly feels it in the beginning. That’s when they’re setting up all the characters and perhaps giving you a little misdirect about what type of movie you’re watching. The actors, or maybe the editors, pull it off with more focus than the usual mumblecore. Once the plot kicks in, the characters are providing active suggestions and solutions, not still talking about their low carb cleanses. (Nice improv, Elizabeth Gracen.) I do wish the night shots didn’t look like muddy low-grade digital video, but that is part of the aesthetic. As I said, the spectacle here is an intellectual one, not a visual one, and that’s damn fine.
This is the kind of movie I’m always hoping to discover at a film festival. There are some recognizable faces and the likes of Gracen, Nicholas Brendan, Lorene Scafaria and Maury Sterling shine here. It’s especially gratifying to discover Emily Foxler (now Baldoni but the credit is still Foxler), Lauren Maher, Hugo Armstrong and Alex Manugian as captivating characters in a profound work of provocative art.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
