Rapid Review: Coherence (2013)

SYNOPSIS: On the night of an astronomical anomaly, eight friends at a dinner party experience a troubling chain of reality bending events. – via IMDB

Eric watched this recently and he was damn taken with it, dragging Ryan and myself into his gushing. Ultimately, he wrote a stellar review for it. Ryan (review) and I then got to it, and the answer seems unanimous: Coherence was a damn fine piece of film that you need to get to immediately if you have not watched it. I don’t want to say too much about it because it is a pretty intense and relatively complicated film without ever getting too complicated, and I can’t speak about it too much without spoiling. This is one of those films you want to go into without knowing too much and see what unfolds from there. It does start slowly, but really, it is totally worth sitting through that, because when it starts catching it just snowballs, getting intense and more and more brilliant every minute that passes. I must say that I enjoyed the acting, it was never actually wooden or anything, it worked pretty well. There were some cool characters, but ultimately this movie is not about the characters and their development, but the predicament that they are in. Every time you think you have a handle on the movie, I promise you it is going to whip around and shock you, proving you know far less than you are getting comfortable with. I like the way the movie was presented as well as how it gets you thinking, even when it is over. It was shot well, too, even though you can see that it is a small budget film. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Nicholas Brendon in here, I am used to only seeing him from time to time as Garcia’s sweet techie other half in Criminal Minds. I loved the concept of the glowsticks in here, as well as the boxes. I know this looks arb and it is very vague and all that, but if/when you watch this, it will all make sense. Emily Baldoni was fantastic as Em. Coherence gets you thinking, and gets you dragged in, testing the bounds of your understanding of what you thought you knew. The dialogue flowed well, and the score worked perfectly in this movie. This is one of the best sci-fi films I have seen in years, and I think it is something that just about everyone can enjoy.