''Coherence'' is a 2013 American
science fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a Film genre, genre combining the thriller (genre), thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting ...
film written and directed by
James Ward Byrkit
James Ward Byrkit (also known as James Byrkit or Jim Byrkit) is an American filmmaker. Byrkit is perhaps best known for his collaborations with director Gore Verbinski, working together on films like ''Mouse Hunt'' and ''Rango (2011 film), Rango'' ...
in his
directorial debut
This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many filmmakers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...
.
The film had its world debut on September 19, 2013, at
Fantastic Fest
Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas, focused on fantasy, horror, sci-fi, action and cult films, the largest genre festival in the United States. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse.
Lisa Dreyer ...
and stars
Emily Foxler as a woman who must deal with strange occurrences following the close passing of a
comet
A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...
.
Plot
On the night of Miller's Comet's passing, eight friends gather for a dinner party at the home of couple Mike and Lee. Emily is hesitant to accompany her boyfriend Kevin on an extended business trip abroad. Amir has brought Kevin's ex-girlfriend Laurie, who flirts inappropriately with Kevin.
A power outage occurs. Mike and Lee bring candles and different colored
glow sticks. The friends each take a blue glow stick and venture outside where the neighborhood is dark but for one house that has lights. Back inside, they notice a broken glass no one remembers damaging. Amir and Hugh decide to ask to use the phone at the lit-up house, as Hugh's physicist brother insisted Hugh call him if "anything strange" were to happen during the comet's passing and no one's mobile phone has signal.
Hugh and Amir return. Hugh has a cut forehead and Amir has brought back a box containing a ping-pong paddle and photographs of everyone with numbers written on the backs. Hugh says he saw through the window of the other house a table set with eight places. They realize the other house is an
alternate version of theirs.
Hugh writes a note to leave at the other house, only to find an exact copy of the note pinned to their own door. Emily, Kevin, Mike, and Laurie decide to go to the other house. On the way, they encounter another group of four, carrying red glow sticks rather than blue. Each group flees back to their house.
Hugh retrieves his brother's book from his car, which deals with
quantum decoherence
Quantum decoherence is the loss of quantum coherence. It involves generally a loss of information of a system to its environment. Quantum decoherence has been studied to understand how quantum systems convert to systems that can be expla ...
. They speculate that the comet has created two split realities, one of which will collapse once the comet has passed. They surmise that anyone passing through the area of particularly dense darkness outside will emerge into a different reality. Mike drinks heavily and considers killing their doubles before the doubles can kill them. He decides to write a blackmail note to the other Mike to keep him from the book.
The group realizes Hugh and Amir, in their midst, came from the other house. The two take the box and leave, then return carrying blue glow sticks. They had found two notes at the other house, showing that the split created more than just two alternate realities. Beth sees Laurie kissing Kevin in the hallway. Someone outside smashes Hugh's car window. Emily retrieves the ring Kevin gave her from her car. Talking to Kevin, Emily realizes he is from a different reality.
The group creates their own box to validate they are all from the same reality. In addition to numbering the photographs by rolling dice, they include a randomly chosen object. Emily deduces that only Lee and Beth, who never left the house, originate from that house; she herself, Kevin, and Laurie are from a different house; Hugh and Amir are from a third house; and Mike is from a fourth. The blackmail note arrives under the door, revealing an adulterous liaison between Mike and Beth. Another Mike breaks in and attacks his double then leaves.
Emily goes out and looks into several alternate houses until she finds one in which no one seems aware of the split. She lures everyone out of the house by smashing Hugh's car window, then ambushes the alternate Emily and sedates her with
ketamine
Ketamine is a cyclohexanone-derived general anesthetic and NMDA receptor antagonist with analgesic and hallucinogenic properties, used medically for anesthesia, depression, and pain management. Ketamine exists as its S- (esketamine) a ...
when she gets her ring out of her car. She takes her other self's place while Miller's Comet breaks apart overhead, but must subdue the other Emily again when she crawls into the bathroom. She takes the ring from her defeated self after losing her own in the altercation, then returns to the living room and faints.
Emily wakes in daylight on the sofa with the rest of the party apparently none the wiser. Kevin returns her ring which he found in the bathroom. His cell phone rings and he notes that, weirdly, it is Emily calling. Emily looks at the two rings as Kevin answers the phone, then he turns to look at her with the phone to his ear.
Cast
*
Emily Foxler as Emily
*
Maury Sterling
Charles Maury Wallace Sterling (born September 1, 1971) is an American actor. He is known for playing Max Piotrowski in '' Homeland'', Rafferty in the comedy film '' Beverly Hills Chihuahua'', and Lester Tremor in the action film '' Smokin' Ace ...
as Kevin
*
Nicholas Brendon
Nicholas Brendon Schultz (born April 12, 1971), known professionally as Nicholas Brendon, is an American actor and writer. He is best known for playing Xander Harris in the television series ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' (1997–2003) and Kevin L ...
as Mike
*
Lorene Scafaria
Lorene Scafaria (born May 1, 1978) is an American filmmaker, playwright, musician, and actress. She wrote and directed the films '' Seeking a Friend for the End of the World'' (2012), '' The Meddler'' (2015), and '' Hustlers'' (2019), as well as ...
as Lee
* Hugo Armstrong as Hugh
*
Elizabeth Gracen
Elizabeth Ward Gracen (born Elizabeth Grace Ward, April 3, 1961) is an American actress and beauty pageant contestant who won the title of Miss America in 1982.
Early life and education
Elizabeth Grace Ward was born on April 3, 1961, in Oz ...
as Beth
* Alex Manugian as Amir
* Lauren Maher as Laurie
* Aqueela Zoll played one copy of Emily when there were two of them in one scene
* Kelly Donovan, the real-life identical twin brother of Nicholas Brendon, played one copy of Mike when there were two of them in one scene
Production
Development
Byrkit came up with the idea for ''Coherence'' after deciding that he wanted to test the idea of shooting a film "without a crew and without a script".
He chose to shoot in his own home and developed the film's science fiction aspect out of necessity, as he wanted to "make a living room feel bigger than just a living room".
While Byrkit did have a specific idea for how the film would unfold, he selected
improvisational
Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...
actors and gave them the basic outline of their characters, motivations, and major plot points.
Byrkit told an interviewer, "For about a year, all I did was make charts and maps and drew diagrams of houses, arrows pointing where everyone was going, trying to keep track of different iterations. Months and months of tracking fractured realities, looking up what actual scientists believe about the nature of reality—
Schrödinger's cat
In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment concerning quantum superposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical cat in a closed box may be considered to be simultaneously both alive and dead while it is unobserved, ...
and all that. It was research, but despite all the graphs and charts, I think our whole idea was that it has to be character-based. We want the logic of our internal rules to be sound, and we wanted it to be something people could watch 12 times and still discover a new layer."
Casting
Byrkit intentionally chose actors who did not know each other. He told an interviewer that, after working on blockbuster films (such as ''
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl''), "I come from the theater where I was trained to really just concentrate on story and character on a stage with actors and so I was craving getting rid of everything, getting rid of the crew; getting rid of the script, no special effects, no support, no money, no nothing, and just getting back to the purity of that, of a camera in your hand and some actress (actors?) that you trust and an idea."
When asked whether the actors were people whom Byrkit knew pretty well, he answered, "Yeah exactly. They were just friends that I knew I could just call up and say, 'Show up at my house in a couple days. I can't really tell you what we're doing, trust me I'm not going to kill you. It should be fun!' And they didn't know each other before they got to my house and so I had to pick people that seemed to be like they could be couples, seemed like they could be best friends and that I just knew were up to the task of jumping into it."
Interviewer Nell Minow confessed her reaction to the actors' relationships: "I just assumed that they all knew each other very well because they fell into the kinds of rhythms that old friends have." Byrkit replied, "That's just casting great people that could do that. Just five minutes after they arrived at my house they had to pretend to be married and lovers and best friends."
Reviewer Matt Prigge praised the choice of casting and their actions: "Byrkit ... focuses not on brainiacs, as in ''
Primer
Primer may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Primer'' (film), a 2004 feature film written and directed by Shane Carruth
* ''Primer'' (video), a documentary about the funk band Living Colour
Literature
* Primer (textbook), a te ...
'', but on smart but mostly under-informed NPR types, who know enough to slowly piece all this together but not enough that they don't usually descend into blabbering, shouting and drinking. Indeed, ''Coherence'' is largely improvised, with a game cast first believably under-reacting to some weird business with laughter and disbelief, then always maintaining a degree of levity (read: jokes and occasional put-downs) even when stuff has gotten real."
Writing
Ryan Lattanzio wrote, "Byrkit brought eight unwitting actors to his Santa Monica home, threw them a few red herrings and set them loose for five days knowing that the film could evolve organically, like great jazz, if he kept his players in the dark. But he and co-storywriter Alex Manugian weren't just making it up as they went along." Byrkit told him that his desire was "to strip down a film set to the bare minimum: getting rid of the script, getting rid of the crew."
Byrkit added, "... instead of a script I had my own 12-page treatment that I spent about a year working on. It outlined all of the twists and reveals, and character arcs and pieces of the puzzle that needed to happen scene-by-scene. But each day, instead of getting a script, the actors would get a page of notes for their individual character, whether it was a backstory or information about their motivations. They would come prepared for their character only. They had no idea what the other characters received, so each night there were completely real reactions, and surprises and responses. This was all in the pursuit of naturalistic performances. The goal was to get them listening to each other, and engaged in the mystery of it all."
Nicholas Brendon, an actor in the film, discussed the improvisational style of the dialogue with
Mandatory
Mandate most often refers to:
* League of Nations mandates, quasi-colonial territories established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 28 June 1919
* Mandate (politics), the power granted by an electorate
Mandate may also r ...
journalist Fred Topel, who asked: "I understand the way ''Coherence'' was done was that everyone got notecards about their characters and the scenes. What was on your notecards?" Brendon replied, "I can't remember now, but every day we had five different things that we had to convey... but I do know that Jim
yrkit and then Alex
anugian the other writer, had to make sure that we were all on point. So it was just a matter of getting that information out. ... Since there was no script, I had no idea how it ended. ... When I saw the movie, I'm like, 'Oh shit, this is awesome!' ... To be quite honest with you, I never really knew what was going on fully until I saw the movie done."
Filming
Principal photography
Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.
Personnel
Besides the main film personnel, such as the ...
took place over the course of five nights in Byrkit's house.
An interviewer asked Byrkit, "Did you run into any unexpected problems in filming?" Byrkit admitted, "... you're constantly dealing with unexpected things. One night we tried to shoot outside and we had to make the whole thing look completely desolate and the power being off; that was the one night that we had another movie shooting on our street. So the whole street is completely ablaze with lights and hundreds of extras." Another team was shooting a
Snickers
Snickers (stylized in all caps) is a chocolate bar consisting of nougat topped with Caramel#Candy, caramel and peanuts, all encased in milk chocolate. The bars are made by the American company Mars Inc. The annual global sales of Snickers is ...
commercial. "We would be right in the middle of the dramatic scenes and there would be another knock on the door that would just scare the hell out of everybody ..."
Music
The original score was composed by Kristin Øhrn Dyrud. The song in the closing credits is "Galaxies", from the album ''
Year of Meteors
''Year of Meteors'' is the fifth studio album by Laura Veirs, released in 2005. On August 7, 2018, it was announced that this album, along with the rest of her releases through Nonesuch would be reissued for the first time in over ten years on ...
'' by
Laura Veirs
Laura Pauline Veirs (born October 24, 1973) is an American singer-songwriter based in Portland, Oregon. She is known for her folk and alternative country records and live performances as well as her collaboration with Neko Case and k.d. lang o ...
.
Inspirations and themes
Byrkit told an interviewer for ''Spinning Platters'', "Well, we came up with the premise in my living room, where the movie is shot. A couple of years ago we were trying to think about what a good low budget, or no budget, movie would be. And, since we didn't have any resources, I had to think of what we actually had. We had a camera. We had some actors who were pretty good, and we had a living room. So we had to find out how to make a living room feel like more than just a living room. And, that led to a whole ''Twilight Zone'' type story ... I was craving a more naturalistic type of dialogue, where people overlap and it's very messy, where people talk more like real humans talk. And so, we planned the story for a year, including the twists and turns and reversals and betrayals so that we had a really tight puzzle – almost like a funhouse that we knew we could lead the actors through."
Some reviewers have suggested that Byrkit was influenced by the eeriness of ''
The Twilight Zone
''The Twilight Zone'' is an American media franchise based on the anthology series, anthology television series created by Rod Serling in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described ...
'' and/or the mind-challenging complexities of the science fiction film ''
Primer
Primer may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Primer'' (film), a 2004 feature film written and directed by Shane Carruth
* ''Primer'' (video), a documentary about the funk band Living Colour
Literature
* Primer (textbook), a te ...
''.
Byrkit answered one interviewer: "''Twilight Zone'', for sure. ''Primer'' wasn't really an influence so much as it was a sign to us that maybe there was an audience for this kind of movie. The actual movie itself is so different than ours that it wasn't as much of an influence as, say, ''
Carnage'' by Roman Polanski, or other non-sci-fi movies."
Reception
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film has a rating of 89% based on 96 reviews. The site consensus says "A case study in less-is-more filmmaking, ''Coherence'' serves as a compelling low-budget calling card for debuting writer-director James Ward Byrkit." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
it has a score of 65% based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Much of the film's praise centered upon its cast, which
Bloody Disgusting
Bloody Disgusting is an American independent multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news website specializing in information services that covered various horror media. The company expanded into other media including podcast ...
and ''
Fangoria
''Fangoria'' is an internationally distributed American horror film fan magazine, in publication since 1979. It is published four times a year by Fangoria Publishing, LLC and is edited by Phil Nobile Jr.
The magazine was originally released i ...
'' cited as a highlight.
Film School Rejects
Film School Rejects is an American blog devoted to movie reviews, interviews, film industry
The film industry or motion picture industry comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production company, prod ...
gave ''Coherence'' a positive review, stating that the film's cast was "remarkably grounded for how complicated and bizarre the story is."
Dread Central
Dread Central is an American website founded in 2006 that is dedicated to horror news, interviews, and reviews. It covers horror films, comics, novels, and toys. Dread Central has won the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Website f ...
commented on the film's themes and wrote, "What's frightening about the story is how willing the characters are to abandon the reality they know in favor of one that may be a little more appealing. Whether that's a byproduct of the comet and the rift it creates or caused by the characters undermining everyone else around them to get the life they really want is the fundamental idea of ''Coherence'' and what makes it so unsettling."
Clark Collis of ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...
'' praised the film, granting it a B+ rating: "In an impressive big-screen debut from James Ward Byrkit, eight friends discover metaphysics on their menu when a passing comet creates a set of
doppelgänger
A doppelgänger ( ), sometimes spelled doppelgaenger or doppelganger, is a ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its own fleshly counterpart.
In fiction and mythology, a doppelgänger is often portrayed as a ghostly or p ...
s down the road, enjoying their own identical soiree. Byrkit makes the most of the claustrophobic one-house setting, ratcheting up the dread and paranoia as his characters make a string of seemingly reasonable but ultimately wrongheaded decisions. The star-free cast is great too, with ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' vet Nicholas Brendon poking fun at himself by playing an actor who used to be on a TV show ... ''Coherence'' is a satisfying and chilling addition to the ever-growing pal-ocalypse subgenre. And really, you have to love a film that not only explains the concept of Schrödinger's cat but also includes a joke about it ("I'm allergic!").
Stephen Dalton of ''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' also enjoyed the film: "An ingenious micro-budget science-fiction nerve-jangler which takes place entirely at a suburban dinner party, ''Coherence'' is a testament to the power of smart ideas and strong ensemble acting over expensive visual pyrotechnics ... A group of eight friends gather for dinner ... Marital tensions and sexual secrets sizzle just below the surface, but relationship drama is soon overshadowed by metaphysical weirdness when a comet passes close to Earth, shutting down power supplies and phone connections ... It slowly becomes clear that the fabric of reality has been radically remixed by the comet's arrival. We are definitely not in Kansas any more ... Byrkit only gave his cast limited information about the narrative loops and swerves ahead, encouraging a semi-improvised naturalism that feels authentically tense."
Matt Zoller Seitz
Matt Zoller Seitz (born December 26, 1968) is an American film and television critic, author and filmmaker.
Career
Matt Zoller Seitz is editor-at-large at RogerEbert.com, and the television critic for ''New York'' magazine and Vulture.com, as w ...
, editor-in-chief of
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
's website, gives the movie three stars out of four and writes that the film "is proof that inventive filmmakers can do a lot with a little ...
utnone of the movie's technical or artistic shortcomings prove to be deal-breakers. Once ''Coherence'' delves into its premise, the viewer is bound to come down with a bad case of the creeps. This is a less-is-more science fiction-horror tale ... And it's genuinely more of a horror film than a suspense or "terror" film because, while there's some violence, the source of unease is philosophical."
Ryan Lattanzio of ''
Indiewire'' praised the film's originality: "''Coherence'' is not just smart science fiction: it's a triumph of crafty independent filmmaking, made with few resources and big ambition. Gotham-nominated debut director James Ward Byrkit stripped his vision down to the barest of bones to achieve a mind-shifting, metaphysical freakout about a dinner party gone cosmically awry. This film explodes with ideas, and it has that thing we always hope for at the movies: the element of surprise."
The reviewer for ''
Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon
A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...
'' was ambivalent: "After the fundamental problem of ''Coherence'' has become clear, or clear-ish – there's another dinner party, at that other house, that looks an awful lot like this one – the movie becomes slightly too much like an unfolding mathematical puzzle, although an ingenious one that reaches a chilling conclusion. Notes appear before they are written, the significance of those numbered photographs comes into focus through a series of neat twists, and while the characters are half-aware that their actions are being shaped by a space-time continuum whose cause-and-effect relationship has gone awry, that's not enough to stop them."
Accolades
* Next Wave Best Screenplay at the
Austin Fantastic Fest (2013, won)
*
Maria Award for Best Screenplay at the
Sitges Film Festival
SITGES - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia () is an annual film festival held in Sitges, Catalonia, Spain. It specializes in fantasy film, fantasy, Horror film, horror and Cult film, cult films. Established in 1968, the festiva ...
(2013, won)
* Carnet Jove Jury Award for best In Competition at the Sitges Film Festival (2013, won)
* Black Tulip Award for Best Feature Debut at the
Imagine Film Festival
The Imagine Film Festival, formerly Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, also known as Imagine Fantastic Film Festival or simply Imagine, is an annual film festival in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The festival was created in 1991 with a focus mainly on ...
(2014, won)
* Imagine Movie Zone Award, Special Mention at the Imagine Film Festival (2014, won)
Indian adaptation
''
Black
Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
'', a 2024 Indian
Tamil language
Tamil (, , , also written as ''Tamizhil'' according to linguistic pronunciation) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. It is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world,. "Tamil is one of ...
film written and directed by KG Balasubramani starring
Jiiva
Amar Choudary (born 4 January 1984), known professionally as Jiiva, is an Indian actor and film producer who works mainly in Tamil cinema and a few Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi films. He is the youngest son of film producer R. B. Choudary.
...
and
Priya Bhavani Shankar
Sathyapriya Bhavani Shankar (born 31 December 1989) is an Indian actress, and a former television-presenter who primarily works in Tamil and Telugu films. She made her acting debut with commercially successful Tamil film '' Meyaadha Maan'' ( ...
, is an adaptation of ''Coherence''.
See also
*
Many-minds interpretation
The many-minds interpretation of quantum mechanics extends the many-worlds interpretation by proposing that the distinction between worlds should be made at the level of the mind of an individual observer. The concept was first introduced in 1970 b ...
*
Many-worlds interpretation
The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts that the universal wavefunction is Philosophical realism, objectively real, and that there is no wave function collapse. This implies that all Possible ...
*
Multiverse
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of all universes. Together, these universes are presumed to comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describ ...
* ''
Everything Everywhere All at Once
''Everything Everywhere All at Once'' is a 2022 American Independent film, independent Absurdist fiction, absurdist comedy-drama film written and directed by Daniels (directors), Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who produced it with Russo brot ...
''
* "
The Garden of Forking Paths
"The Garden of Forking Paths" (original Spanish title: "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan") is a 1941 short story by Argentina, Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. It is the title story in the collection ''El jardín de senderos que ...
", a 1941 short story by Argentine writer and poet
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo ( ; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish literature, Spanish-language and international literatur ...
*
''Dark Matter'' (2024 TV series)
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coerence
2013 films
2013 directorial debut films
2013 independent films
2013 psychological thriller films
2010s science fiction thriller films
2010s English-language films
2010s American films
American independent films
American psychological thriller films
American science fiction thriller films
Comets in film
English-language independent films
English-language science fiction thriller films
Films about adultery in the United States
Films about parallel universes
Films set in Santa Monica, California
Films shot in Santa Monica, California
Improvised films