Coherence (2013) review

Eight friends gather in a house for a common dinner party, while a dangerous comet passes over the Earth. The comet seems to have only affected the house’s electrical devices, but it is not until the guests are forced to leave the house that they discover its real effects.

Having been developing the film’s concept for a year, James Ward Byrkit (who has previously participated in the art department and screenplay of Gore Verbinski films) gathers an eight-member cast and shoots, almost entirely within a house, an independent, experimental science-fiction thriller on a tight budget and… with no script! In the beginning, Byrkit as the director gives the impression of the simple observer of a random dinner party between eight everyday people and the realism of dialogues and performances reveals undoubtable improvisation. Actors speak on top of one another and at times even mix up their words, making the film feel impressively realistic.

In the first fifteen minutes of the film, one can link it to the sci-fi genre only through random hints. However, the development of the plot leads to us being surrounded by an engrossing science-fiction atmosphere, as well as to a number of enjoyably unpredictable twists, which not even the actors themselves (excluding co-writer Alex Manugian) knew about.

Given all the above, it may sound like it is impossible for the film to be actually decent (outside the margins of an interesting experiment). Still, all those elements end up being the exact reason Coherence proves out to be such a remarkable sci-fi thriller. And this is because its success does not rely on the special effects -which it avoids in an exemplary way, not simply due to the small budget, but because it doesn’t need them- but on the imaginative development of an extremely compelling idea. Lance Pereira’s achievement in editing, which is as excellent as it is difficult, seems to give a vital pulse to the improvisational scenes and the found-footage-like realism makes us even more surprised at the unexpected plot twists. This way, the film plunges us deeper and deeper into an existential nightmare, which never runs out of surprises.

Of course, there’s no doubt the film loses its strength at some points, as Byrkit does not avoid the -rather common in American independent cinema- focus on unnecessary dramatic subplots focused on individual characters. Also, the film’s finale, although it does climax the story’s existential spirit, feels disappointingly awkward. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to reconsider these flaws from the point of view indicated by the film’s original title, The Understudy, which refers to the character of the protagonist Emily Baldoni. In any case, James Ward Byrkit’s impressive achievement proudly manages to prove that good science-fiction films do not necessarily need dazzling visual effects to be impressive and it turns out to be -in the simplest way possible- unsettlingly suspenseful and nearly mind-blowing. 

(3½ out of 5 spinning tops)