[MEOW] Coherence

[Kyle]

This is the discussion thread for the All New Nerd Pride Radio Movie of the Every Other Week!

This thread is only for those who have seen the movie recently. Commentary from people who haven't seen it will be deleted.

This Every Other Weeks Movie: Coherence, selected by Kyle

WARNING- ALL SPOILERS FOR THIS MOVIE ARE ALLOWED! For real, if you haven't seen it, don't read any further!

Discuss!

[Tahlvin]

The scene transitions at the beginning really annoyed me. Thankfully, that didn't last long. Once they stopped with the abrupt cuts, I started to enjoy it. I thought it was an interesting plot idea. It was interesting to watch them work out what was going on, and to realize that the people they were with were not the ones from their original reality. And it was interesting to watch Em make the decision to go try to find the reality she wanted to stay in. And I actually like the cliffhanger ending that leaves you wondering what will happen with two of her in that particular reality.

Decent movie overall. I'd give it 3.5 to 4 stars. My wife started watching with me part of the way through and enjoyed it as well.

[Mike]

[buckett]

Kind of a mixed bag for me. Not really a fan of Puzzle Box movies/TV shows that are more interested in telling a riddle than a story, and I felt like Coherence fell into this trap, with WAY too many scenes of characters reading off wiki pages as exposition. For example, I'm sure those abrupt cuts signify something, like 'branches' where the houses diverged, but I just didn't really care too much to try and figure it out.

But the concept was strong, and I liked the fly-on-the-wall directing. There were moments where you could see them using the concept to explore some interesting psychological angles. I loved the scenes of Mike flipping out because he was convinced his other self was already drinking and plotting to murder them. Likewise, the ending bit with Em trying to find a better universe to live in was a neat idea. But those moments were just kind of buried in the riddle. Didn't dislike it, but ultimately kind of a frustrating experience for me.

[vague spoilers for Mr. Robot below]

As a side note, not sure if anyone finished out Mr. Robot, but Sam Esmail has to be a big fan of this movie. His first film, Comet, has some frankly blatantly obvious parallels, and the last season of Mr. Robot has some episodes that pretty explicitly play off the final scenes in Coherence.

[Kyle]

I watched this originally in 2016 for my 366 in 366 challenge and really loved it. But understand that I'm a huge fan of genre films and this definitely scratches the itch of weird-time-fuck movies. The scripting was tight in the timelines and progression, but the acting was clearly in the loose improv style, which I thought actually played nicely off the regimented precision required by the basic premise of the script. Generally, the acting was all good, particularly when Xander decided that he was going to freak out and start drinking while thinking of how he was going to murder/blackmail/assault himself. But what I really enjoyed was the part that Jon didn't-- watching the puzzle box unfold as they figure out the conceit.

All of that said, this wasn't a deep or profound movie, and it's attempts to try that (like Em "waiting" all the time or her feelings of abandonment) seemed like lazy efforts that were ultimately abandoned. But it was a lot of fun and I had a lot of fun watching it this second time knowing what the twist is.

Overall a good experience and definite recommend for genre fans.

[Stan]

I watched this yesterday.

I like low budget SF where, instead of obviously low budget effects, they go for conceptual presentation. I found the comet idea stupid but went with it as a starting point. At times, the editing was annoying. The way people talked over each other felt realistic. It was nice overall but felt a tad long for having only a few things happening.

Curious, I looked up what Xander has been up to. Oddly parallel, he had a period of drinking problems that led up to an incident with charges filed just a couple of years before this movie.