Review: “Coherence”

Proof that you don’t need a big budget if you have good actors, a strong script, and a working knowledge of chaos theory.

I was a little nervous going into Coherence, an independent sci-fi/horror flick that I queued up at the start of COVID-19 isolation.* Given the high concept and low budget, the title almost felt like a taunt. As if the filmmakers were saying “We got stoned and came up with this idea, man, and it’s CRAAAZY” (wild gesticulating), “I’m sure you’ll have no problem following the plot!” (audible sarcasm). Truth be told, though, I needn’t have worried. For one, we now live in a world where the biggest movie of 2019 involved time travel and the convergence of different timelines. One of my favorite sitcom episodes of the past decade introduced seven different realities through chaos theory. The idea of a multiverse, at one time relegated to Isaac Asimov-reading poindexters, is pretty much a standard fiction trope today. That doesn’t mean that these are easy stories to tell by any means, but the pump has been primed a bit by larger pop culture forces. The filmmakers here have done a very admirable job of articulating their vision on the screen, while withholding enough information from the viewer and characters to befit a horror film. The slow dawning of comprehension as the film goes on really plays well, as you mirror the revelations of your on-screen counterparts. There are perhaps a few strained leaps of logic that the characters make, but I vastly prefer that over a bunch of extra scenes where they play dumb while you wait for them to catch up to you.

You’ll notice that I haven’t spilled any plot details yet, but that’s sort of on purpose. There are no big special effects or extended action sequences in Coherence, so the thrills come from discovering the story for yourself. The basic set up is that a group of old friends gather for a dinner party, and then the power goes out. Only one house in their neighborhood seems to have electricity, and it happens to contain the exact same dinner party. From that simple premise, the film launches into an exploration of identity, paranoia, and from a metatextual standpoint, who we consider protagonists versus antagonists simply based on screen time. I’ve used this blog in the past to rail against movies that waste their resources on lousy scripts, be they micro-budget indies or massive studio blockbusters. This is a hugely inexpensive film that gets it right. You don’t miss the trappings of a bigger budget, because the story justifies its own existence. As one of those aforementioned poindexters, I can attest that there was real effort in crafting the various plot devices and making sure that the whole house of cards holds up to scrutiny. The other element that has to be successful in a movie like this is the acting, because, again, there is nothing else to distract you from it. Everyone in Coherence gives believable performances which hint at long-standing relationships and internal history. Movies like this usually rely on one or more characters devolving into hysterics, and while things certainly get tenser and more heightened as the film goes on, none of the acting ever pulls you out of the story. The only actor I recognized is Nicolas Brendon (aka Xander from Buffy; aka value-priced Matthew Perry), but they all pull their weight in a film that could conceivably be reimagined as a live stage production. I would recommend this one as a nice little overachieving horror flick that isn’t too scary, but does make you think.

*My original phrasing when I wrote this review, my first of the year back in April, was “in the midst of COVID-19 isolation”. It didn’t occur to me at the time that we could still conceivably be isolating by the time I published the review in October. In 2020 we’re living the real horror movie, folks.

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