Coherence (film)

Coherence

Theatrical release poster
Directed by James Ward Byrkit
Written by James Ward Byrkit
Story by
  • James Ward Byrkit
  • Alex Manugian
Starring
Music by Kristin Øhrn Dyrud
Cinematography Nic Sadler
Edited by Lance Pereira
Production
company
  • Bellanova Films
  • Ugly Duckling Films
Distributed by
Release dates
  • September 19, 2013 (2013-09-19) (Austin Fantastic Fest)
Running time
 88 minutes[1]
Country
  • United States
Language English
Budget $50,000
Box office $102,617[2]

Coherence is an American science fiction thriller film directed by James Ward Byrkit in his directorial debut.[3] The film had its world debut on September 19, 2013 at the Austin Fantastic Fest and stars Emily Baldoni as a woman who must deal with strange occurrences following a comet sighting.[4]

Plot

Three couples — Emily and Kevin, Hugh and Beth, Amir and Laurie — attend a dinner party hosted by their friends Mike and Lee. At the party, they mention the passing comet which has been on the news for a while. Everyone notices their cell phone and laptop losing receptions. Emily talks about strange phenomena recorded in Finland after a comet passed in 1923. Hugh wants to contact his brother, a physicist who had warned him about odd effects from the comet.

A blackout then occurs. Hugh and Amir head to another house a few blocks away still has power for a working telephone. After power is restored, Hugh and Amir return, carrying a box which they had found at the other house. Hugh explains that he saw in the other house a dinner table set exactly like theirs. In the box are a ping pong paddle and several photos. The group is alarmed to find that each photo has one of them in it and a number on the back. Amir notes that the photo of him was taken that night, inside the house, and Emily realizes that the numbers are written in her handwriting.

Mike, Laurie, Emily, and Kevin decide to go to the other house. On the way, they pass through an area darker than the rest of the neighborhood. Mike realizes that the other house is exactly like his house and peeks inside. When the four head back to their house, they encounter alternate versions of themselves. Both groups flee to their respective houses. Back at the house, Beth retrieves a book written by her brother-in-law. Inside the book are notes about the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. The group surmises that there are two different versions of themselves, which will likely collapse into one single reality once the comet passes. Mike half jokingly suggests killing the other versions to ensure their own survival. While talking down Mike, the group realizes that their alternate selves might not be aware of the book yet. Mike decides to blackmail his other self into keeping the other group from reading the book. He writes a note threatening to reveal the extramarital affair between Beth and him. Meanwhile, Hugh and Amir, who are actually alternate versions from the other house, steal the book and the box of photos and flee. Afterwards, the original Hugh and Amir return, saying that they have spent time in the other house, having mistaken it for their own.

The group creates a means to identify which house they are in. After each person contributes a photos of themselves, Emily writes a number determined by a dice roll on the photos' backs. The photos are then put in a box with a randomly chosen item. However, Emily soon learns that only Mike, Laurie, and Kevin are from the same reality as hers. She surmises that there are many more than two versions of the house, and every time they pass through the "dark zone", they emerge at a random version. A note is slipped under the door, which turns out to be Mike's blackmail note. Upon reading it, Hugh learns that Mike slept with his wife and an argument ensues. Another Mike bursts through the door and attacks Mike before being chased off.

Emily, tired of her reality, leaves the house and crosses the dark zone. And eventually she discovers a version where the group are happy and enjoying themselves, presumably never having left their reality's house. Her alternate self is a successful dancer and in a secure relationship with Kevin. She breaks a car window to lure everyone outside and tranquilizes her alternate self with ketamine stolen from Beth. She then goes inside and joins the others. When the power goes out, the group watches the comet breaking apart, apparently signaling the various possible realities collapsing into one. Emily sees her alternate self, still woozy from the drugs, crawl into the bathroom. Emily bludgeons her over the head and stashes the body in the shower. She leaves the bathroom and inexplicabley collapses.

The next morning, Emily wakes up to find everyone in good spirits and the body of her alternate version has apparently disappeared. She goes outside to Kevin. He receives a phone call which, he notes, is coming from Emily herself. After answering the phone, he looks at her suspiciously, suggesting that she is stuck in another reality where its resident Emily is still alive.

Cast

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".[5] 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".[5] While Byrkit did have a specific idea for how the film would unfold, he selected improvisational actors and gave them the basic outline of their characters, motivations, and major plot points.[6]

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 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."[7]

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 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 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."[8]

Byrkit added,

"...instead of having a script, each actor was given a page of notes each day with their back story or sort of motivation for the night. But they wouldn't know what the other actors had received so it had a very natural, very spontaneous collision of motivations that ended up being what you see on film; obviously guided by a very strict outline that we have been working on for about a year that tracked all the clues and the puzzles and all the rehearsals and things like that. But the actors weren't aware of those, those things happened because we were sort of guiding them through it."

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."[8]

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."[8]

Reviewer Matt Prigge praised the choice of casting and their actions: "Byrkit ... focuses not on brainiacs, as in Primer, 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."[9]

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."[10]

Actor Brendon discussed the improvisational style of the dialogue with CraveOnline 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 [Byrkit], and then Alex [Manugian], 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."[11]

Filming

Principal photography took place over the course of five nights in Byrkit's house.[7]

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 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..."[8]

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 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 fun house that we knew we could lead the actors through."[12]

Some reviewers have suggested that Byrkit was influenced by the eeriness of The Twilight Zone and/or the mind-challenging complexities of the science fiction film Primer.[7][9][13][14][15]

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."[7]

Reception

Critical reception for Coherence has been predominantly positive and the film currently holds a rating of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 74 reviews.[16][17]

Much of the film's praise centered upon its cast, which Bloody Disgusting and Fangoria cited as a highlight.[18][19] Film School Rejects gave Coherence a positive review, stating that the film's cast was "remarkably grounded for how complicated and bizarre the story is."[20]

Dread Central 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."[21]

Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly 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 doppelgängers 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!").[22]

Stephen Dalton of The Hollywood Reporter 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 astrological 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."[14]

Matt Zoller Seitz, editor-in-chief of Roger Ebert's website, gives the movie three gold stars and writes that the film "is proof that inventive filmmakers can do a lot with a little... [but] none 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."[23]

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."[10]

The reviewer for Salon 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."[24]

Accolades

References

  1. ↑ "COHERENCE (15)". British Board of Film Classification. January 26, 2015. Retrieved January 26, 2015.
  2. ↑ "Coherence (2014)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
  3. ↑ Wiseman, Andreas. "Independent to sell Coherence". Screen Daily. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  4. ↑ Hunter, Rob. "‘Coherence’ Trailer Teases a Film That Engages Your Mind Before Bending It". FSR. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  5. 1 2 Topel, Fred. "Fantastic Fest 2013: James Ward Byrkit & Emily Foxler on Coherence". CraveOnline. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  6. ↑ Brown, Todd. "COHERENCE: Watch The Theatrical Trailer For James Ward Byrkit's Stellar Indie SciFi". Twitch Film. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Tobias, Scott (June 26, 2014). "How James Ward Byrkit constructed Coherence". The Dissolve. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Minow, Nell (2014). "Interview: James Ward Byrkit of Coherence". BeliefNet. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  9. 1 2 Prigge, Matt (June 19, 2014). "Review: 'Coherence' is a mind-blower that's actually mind-blowing". Metro (Metro International). Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  10. 1 2 Lattanzio, Ryan (October 23, 2014). "How Gotham Nominee James Ward Byrkit Made Coherence in 5 Days with No Script or Budget". Thompson on Hollywood. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  11. ↑ Topel, Fred (June 20, 2014). "Coherence: Nicholas Brendon on Schrodinger's Cat and Buffy". CraveOnline. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  12. ↑ LIffmann, Chad (June 23, 2014). "Spinning Platters Interview: James Ward Byrkit, Writer/Director, Coherence". Spinning Platters. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  13. ↑ Barone, Matt (June 20, 2014). "Permanent Midnight: On Coherence, a Must-See Twilight Zone Homage For the Bourgeoisie". Complex. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  14. 1 2 Dalton, Stephen (2014-06-13). "Coherence: Film Review: Cosmic Catastrophe comes to Dinner in first-time director James Ward Byrkit's Smart, Spooky, Low-Budget Sci-Fi Shocker". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  15. ↑ Feldberg, Isaac (June 21, 2014). "Coherence Review". We Got This Covered. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  16. ↑ Prime, Samuel B. "Fantastic Fest 2013: Coherence, Patrick, Why Don't You Play in Hell?, & The Congress". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  17. ↑ "Coherence". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
  18. ↑ Macomber, Shawn. "COHERENCE (Fantastic Fest Movie Review)". Fangoria. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  19. ↑ Cooper, Patrick. "[Fantastic Fest '13 Review] Get Paranoid As Hell with the Twisty Sci-Fi Thriller Coherence". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  20. ↑ Treveloni, Michael. "Fantastic Fest: Coherence is an Excellent, Comprehensible Mess". FSR. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  21. ↑ Tinnin, Drew. "Coherence (review)". Dread Central. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  22. ↑ Collis, Clark (June 12, 2014). "Coherence (2014)". Entertainment Weekly: 50.
  23. ↑ Seitz, Matt Zoller (June 20, 2014). "Coherence". www.rogerebert.com. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  24. ↑ O'Hehir, Andrew (June 19, 2014). "Coherence puts a strange, sci-fi twist on the dinner party movie". Salon. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  25. 1 2 "Coherence Trailer Introduces Psychological Puzzle". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  26. ↑ "Sitges - 46ed. Festival Internacional de Catalunya (11/10 - 20/10)". Sitges Film Festival. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  27. 1 2 "And the winners are...". IFF. Retrieved 8 June 2014.

External links

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