Coherence

Coherence kept popping up on lists of best sci-fi films which was surprising because I had never seen a trailer or heard anything about it. I found it free to stream somewhere, so I checked it out, and I am so glad I did! What I found was a very low-budget film with a cast you have never heard of but a premise and script that were so well executed that this movie blew my mind! The panic and anxiety of the characters as they try to understand what is happening around them is told with such brilliance that the audience is lost, intrigued, overwhelmed, and bought in all at the same time. I'm telling you - watch this movie!

I've never watched a film that made me feel stoned. Until now.

'Coherence' is master example of what you can achieve with close to no budget, but enough inventiveness. Shot over five days with almost unknown cast (except maybe Nicholas Brendon from 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer') and mostly improvised scenes and dialogue. The writers (director James Ward Byrkit and Alex Manugian who also played the role of Amir) had only written just story and established rules while most of the witty dialogue were improvised by actors themselves, thus proving that the film doesn't need some superstars, but rather talented ensemble cast. Although the hand-held camera-work might seem to take viewer out of the story, it was just another way to give more room to the improvisation. Despite all of that the film manages to keep an eerie atmosphere, and the story movies on one continuous flow without getting sidetracked. The story also doesn't crumble into pieces under it's own ambitions. The twists hold together and actually makes sense. Although the final twist might seem to be rushed and thrown into there just for the sake of it, but it kinda fits and doesn't change the film's overall tone.

'Coherence' is slow burning psychological science-fiction for a thinking person, and it holds up much better than most big budgeted pretentious science-fiction extravaganzas. Recommended especially for those who like independent sci-fi and/or films that take place in one room.

Based upon viewer comments, this is either great or horrible and, for my money, I agree in both cases. Maybe it's a matter of expectation? If you like movies with effects and high production values (no shame in that) this isn't for you. It you like creators trying to be unique, then this might be fun.

For me, there are a couple ooooo moments that make this worth while. And I love that Nicholas Brendan's twin brother shows up as a special effect, like he did in that really good episode of Buffy.

A group of friends in LA come together for a dinner party on the same night as a comet is going to be passing close to Earth. Warned of potentially odd events, the group is bemused by the loss of phone signals, and the occasional cracked handset, but a little more freaked out by the loss of power to pretty much the entire neighborhood. One of the group, Hugh, has a brother who works in the field of astrophysics and had suggested weirdness may occur – so Hugh and Amir head out to the only house in the area they can see with power, hoping to find a working telephone to contact him on. However, while they are out, other weirdness starts to occur.

Several years since it was made, this very low budget film arrives in the UK with only a few screenings in London that I know of. I had never heard about it till I saw some positive reviews in the paper, and reading about it afterwards (as you will) I learnt that it was shot in only 5 nights pretty much using the director's own front room as the set. This does show in the final film – not that it is cheaply made, but that it is a sci-fi where the ideas are the thing rather than big special effects or anything like this. It is said that the best sci- fi are about ideas and I would say this is often the case, when they are done well; fortunately Coherence is a film that (mostly) does it well.

Not to say much, but there are elements here that will be familiar to anyone who has seen time-travel films with alternate versions, or anything in Twilight Zone/Outer Limits involving alternate universes. Going online you will find lots of discussions about the film including a great thread here on IMDb where someone has broken down the entire film into diagram showing all the time-lines in more detail than I would guess even the makers ever did; however this is not to say that the film cannot be enjoy at a more reasonable level. I found it very nicely delivered so that we are pretty much our group the whole time in terms of their understanding of events – sometimes I was behind the plot, sometimes a little ahead of it, but mostly it kept me engaged and keen to see what happened. A few jump scares and loud noises are used to perhaps raise tension artificially early on, but otherwise the film manages to use the closed location and small group to increase tension and fear of the unknown throughout, making it enjoyable.

As an idea it is not perfect and you will find flaws if you pull at the edges, however I found it satisfyingly constructed and delivered. Some have complained about the camera-work and to a point I can understand the question as to why it needed to move around so much in a comparatively static area; however I found that to a point it helped put me in the room with the characters. This doesn't totally excuse some of the more amateur aspects of the look of the film, with so-so lighting and changeable color – although a perhaps accidental impact of this is that it also made me question where I was in the film. I was a bit surprised to see some complain about the acting, because actually I thought the unknown cast was very good. I bought into them as a dinner party group of artists and Los Angeles successes, and I thought they stuck well with their characters even as odd things happen; okay none of them coped well with some of the clunkier moments (the book was not the best way to bring exposition into the film) but otherwise they worked well.

Coherence is not as good as you have heard, but it is a very enjoyable film nonetheless – I think part of the high praise it receives is that it is a low-budget film that delivers much more than most viewers would expect. I found it mostly cleverly written and well delivered to draw the viewer in, give plenty of mystery and tension, and generally satisfy throughout and at the end. The low- budget nature of it does show, and the writing is not as perfect as it appears, but for 90 minutes I really enjoyed it and appreciated how engaged I was by what it was doing.