User Reviews

A mind-bending and very entertaining independent science-fiction film, Coherence takes place over a single night in which a group of old friends (an ex-lovers) gather for a party on a night when a comet is expected to pass unusually close to the Earth. One of which is played by Nicholas Brendon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a scene-stealing role. I missed him.

At first, glasses start breaking and cellphones shatter. Then the power goes off, except at one house down the street. Then there are strange bangs on the door and bizarre notes left at the house. Things get stranger when two of them decide to go to the lit-up house to make a phone call.

It's a good film to me because the science-fiction concept ends up reflecting the real-life conflicts between the characters in a very clever way. I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending, but the film is a wild and entertaining ride before it gets there. Scenes propel themselves to other scenes with fast and snappy dialogue. Though it will be compared to films like Primer and Timecrimes, it's a pretty original film overall.

There's a lot to like about Coherence. It has an original premise. It's well acted and the dialogue has a nice naturalistic feel.

Unfortunately, the conflict and paranoid atmosphere felt forced to me. It's all well and good to have one character, Mike, who has a drinking problem and such hostility toward himself that he assumes that his Doppelganger will try to kill him. But why are all the other characters in this film so paranoid and on edge from the beginning? They're a bunch of self-absorbed yuppies, not escaped murderers from a maximum-security prison.

You're at a dinner party, there's a power outage so the lights go out, and then there's a knock at the door so. . . you startle as if they threw a rock through your window? And then grab a baseball bat before answering? This seems odd, especially when two members of your party have just left to go investigate the house up the street with the intention of asking to use the phone. If it were me, I'd just assume that someone was probably coming to my door to ask the very same thing.

And once these characters figure out that reality has fractured and that there are duplicates of themselves from another reality running around--I still don't understand what they're so afraid of. I mean, obviously that would be a freaky and unsettling situation. But once your doppelganger has demonstrated, by leaving exactly the same note that you wrote on your front door, that he behaves exactly as you do, wouldn't you at least be somewhat curious to meet him or her? Most of these characters seemed reasonably intelligent and rational. Why should they be so automatically fearful of these alternative selves--even after they've accidentally spent time with them and found them to be benign.

I think the writer needed a stronger trigger for all the fear and hostility.

And as several commenters here have mentioned, the camera work is bad. I understand that hand-held is used to add energy and tension to a scene, but there's no excuse for things like that interminable opening shot in which no part of the frame is in focus. It's just annoying.

This film deserves all ten stars, mostly because it's a legitimate and creative exploration of the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum foundations. It does so brilliantly, in my opinion, and from the very beginning. (Note : I would watch this without being spoiled, which I am about to do.)

The basic plot is that a comet causes "coherence" (i.e., the opposite of decoherence, which is a quantum mechanics phenomenon that some believe causes the world to "branch" into multiple different versions) which brings a large number of other worlds together. The guests at a dinner party encounter slightly different versions of themselves.

A watcher knowing nothing about the film (as I was originally) would not pick up on this, but the film establishes early on that it is set in a world alternate even to the viewer's world ("our" world). It does so by using an actor who most of us would recognize from Buffy the Vampire Slayer playing an actor who was not in Buffy, but was the lead in the show Roswell. (Roswell existed as a show in our world, but this actor was not the lead in Roswell.) As well, characters get small things wrong about each other from the jump, which in retrospect one realizes means that the worlds "cohered" even before the dinner guests arrived at their hosts' house. (The beginning of the coherence is depicted by the main character's phone cracking as the movie just begins, but the viewer only realizes that retrospectively, if at all.) This is ironic, because the guests ultimately realize that that there are other versions of themselves that are getting all mixed up and panic about it, even though they were mixed up from the jump and oblivious to it. It is this thoughtfulness (and playfulness) that forces me to give all the stars, even though I don't like doing that. Throughout the film, there are lots of subtle things happening and said which are easy to miss and reward repeat viewing.

It's also worth pointing out that there's an underlying emotional story here, too: a woman whose calling as a dancer was missed by chance and who uses the coherence as a way of taking back control. Or trying to...

On top of all this, the film is well acted and edited. I like a tight, 90-minute film.

interesting and entertaining for me. have to admit that did not understand certain things, however, I had no desire to watch it again to find the answers.

please see the movie first, as I doubt that comments would make sense....

1. I think there was no enough motivation to resort to violence.

2. also, if the characters found out that interfering with another reality would destabilise the balance why would they carry on interfering, why they think that it would solve the problem, besides there is no real problem or threat, everything is based on theoretical propositions. In other words, I did not see enough evidence or necessity (even in their proposed theories) for them to think about threat or violence.

In the end one of the characters tries to knock/pass out herself from another reality, which was at the initial phase, so I thought she wanted to guide others not to interfere or give some clues but later she resorts to even more violence, which does not make sense to me, as they did not have any realistic theory, which would imply that somehow the other selves from another realities would cause trouble. anyway how hurting/harming themselves would solve the "problem", not demonstrated.

3. probably most of us would freak out in these kind of conditions but at least one of them should have been interested just to make a contact with him/herself - non of them was holding a gun or knife and non of them seemed a violent person, normal intelligent people, who I am sure would have acted differently in reality as there was no immediate or visible threat to their lives.

4. maybe there were all hallucinated by that drug, also I am sure there are more clues in the film than I noticed, especially about that drug near the end but as mentioned earlier could not watch second time. furthermore, there was a strange call right at the end, which suggests that it was not a hallucination.

it is good that the story is open to interpretations but for me the actions pursued by the characters require more motivation and reasoning than shown in the movie....

Second watch, and *wow*. Can easily say this would be among my favourite films released in 2013, making it the fourth sci-fi movie in the top five (alongside Her, Under the Skin, and Upstream Colour - the exception being Inside Llewyn Davis). Its greatest trick is fooling the audience into believing that there are only two houses for at least an hour, until Hugh shows up with a different plaster and we realise all previous assumptions made were false. (At around 45 minutes, the first hint is made when Beth asks Lee where she got the vase in the kitchen from, seemingly for the second time that night - Emily's reaction shows she picks up on this, formulating the "roulette wheel" theory.) As such, the Schrödinger explanation felt less pandering and expository this time around, once you realise that the proposition is wrong (or, at least, not all-encompassing): the decoherence has not resulted in just two states, dead or alive, but a whole multiverse of infinite possibilities. Like the attempt to explain the events as a drug-induced mass hallucination, this is just a theory - which is what makes this so entertaining on first watch, as we are more or less on the same level of understanding as the characters throughout; on subsequent viewings, these theories can be dismissed and one can instead marvel at the ingenuity of the script, which allows three or four different versions of our protagonists to be on screen before we even realise there are any more than two.

Primarily a parable of choice: the multitude of possible outcomes in life is paramount to the story, as we try to distinguish the different realities by whether Hugh has a "regular band-aid" or a cloth one, if the glowsticks are red, blue, or green; which of those three colours the marker is, what die roll each person got, whether the glass we later see being cleaned is cracked or not, whether Hugh's phone screen is likewise broken or not, whether the supposedly unique box contains a ping pong paddle, oven mitt, coaster, stapler, napkin, or monkey; et cetera. These countless decisions and random chances which we face in life make lasting impacts upon us - in one reality, Kevin is a caring boyfriend who gets sentimental when shown Em's ring; in another, he has no reaction to seeing it and cheats on her with Laurie. (In another, he is still together with Laurie, and Emily appears to be the subject of discussion as the "crazy one".) Mike is a fully recovered alcoholic in the first instance we see him, but later is far more erratic and drinks heavily.

Above all, the thesis of the film is that these choices are final and cannot be overturned - Emily, our hero (being the one character who we follow without changing into a slightly altered-reality version of his/herself), can never go back and accept the understudy role, or undo her hesitation at joining Kevin in Vietnam, even after window shopping for seemingly the perfect outcome; the key takeaway from the ambiguous conclusion is that Em does not get away with her attempted reset, that no matter how hard she tries, choices are irreversible. That ending is the only part I still struggle to make sense of, and this is intentional - the alt-Emily disappearing from the bathtub calls back her earlier story about the comet over Finland, where the evidence of a murder completely disappeared. But the ring doesn't vanish, and some other Emily calls Kevin, meaning coherence has not been wholly achieved. Again, a purposeful decision on the director's part to leave out a definitive answer, which I can accept as probably the right move.

Incredible to read that the dialogue is almost entirely improvised, as all the interactions feel so natural, and often quite funny: "We have wine, cheese, ketamine." "Thanks, coach." "If there are a million different realities, I have slept with your wife in every one of them." (This last one is another example of a character assuming something later implied to be false; in the final house, mention of Emily's understudy suggests her dancing career was a success in this reality, meaning that pre-comet events can also be different in separate dimensions. This may explain why, in the first house, Mike hadn't heard of Laurie, and Laurie didn't recognise Mike, despite claiming to be a fan of the show he supposedly starred in - everyone may have entered the "dark zone" when driving to the venue, resulting in separate realities from the very start.) Beyond the sci-fi and drama working simultaneously, there is a definite horror element too. The loud knock genuinely made me jump the first time I saw this, and the moment where they meet the doppelgängers is chilling. The existential finale rivals most psychological-horrors out there.

Obviously not without its flaws, many of which come with the ultra-low-budget territory: a couple instances of distracting ADR (especially Lee saying "Can we keep two guys here" around 30 minutes in), some mediocre camerawork which took me out of the experience for a few seconds, and the actor playing Laurie is occasionally not up to the standard of the others. My main issue is the music, which is too leaned upon to create tension when the strength of the material would carry it alone - the loudness of the score (when e.g. The group run away from their doubles, or when Em is hiding the body in the bathroom) feels counterproductive to what is already exciting action without the forced intensity. Not to mention it often sounds like a stock track; while I can now say for certain that I prefer this over (the borderline-masterpiece) Primer, it excites me just to think of how amazing Coherence would be with the composing talents of Shane Carruth. Latter is superior to the former though, both due to its emotional weight and unexpected accessibility - even when we aren't sure what exactly is happening, the film is easy to follow, as the characters are all uncertain too (cf. Carruth's film, where the viewer is always behind the protagonists and trying to piece together an exceedingly complex puzzle); this is what made me (falsely) assume that I had understood it just fine the first go around, and I'm sure that when I watch it again I'll realise how much I missed this time. Just a brilliant idea executed almost perfectly, and somehow so tight, with a runtime under 90 minutes. I love this movie.

• and so would my rating, if possible, break out the limits of 1-10 What is most funny is that we cannot be sure of absolutely anything depicted, because it is likely this movie is only limited period of a story far beyond it's frame.

It is clearly shown that Laurie and Mike have no recollection of each other, as if they haven't met before. A director's clue is almost explicit in line "I guess it must be another girl that Kevin dated and Amir is hooking up with". Besides, it is stated the technology failures occurred during the day of the dinner party, the comet was affecting the world throughout some time.

The whole "original house" may not even be as original, because the group goes outside to watch the comet, and when they return in, one glass on the table is broken. It seems the have changed the entire setting (the house itself) as a unit.

Bonus clue for the never-ending ending debate: there are two rings after the comet falling apart. If material objects are preserved, so may be are people as well.. Especially if we consider another line told by Lee (or someone else), how the house is the box and they are the Schroedinger's cat. Therefore anyone in the house is not affected by outside turmoils. Original Emily has left her double in the bathtub, in the house. She simply.. cannot be dead or evaporated. Besides, if the strange effects started before the nighttime of previous day, why would they end with the sunrise? Another interesting phenomenon is the last house itself. It seems not to have been impacted at all, by the comet. No note, no one knocking, no interferences according to their behavior.

The other interesting phenomenon are the electric blackouts, happening for unknown reason. In one interview the director clued on following Emily at all times. However these blackouts are cutting us from her, and that may also be significant.

The last thing I'd like to mention is the scene by the car, where Emily and Kevin meet, and realize they're not from the same realities. This scene is one of the most eerie scenes I have ever seen.

Thank you for this movie, it is a treasure for humanity.

Films with Sci-fi themes, it can be said, require media and production sites that are like the technology of the future world. The director and writer of the film Coherence, namely James Ward Byrkit, who maybe some don't know him in the film world, I mean, thus presupposes it as Nolan's debut in the film Following. In my opinion, there are similarities in terms of the commercial output of these two films, which are in line with the plot.

In contrast to Coherence which relies on dialogue in the dining room set . The meeting of couples who know each other, with characterization names composed of one to two syllables, in order to make it easier for the audience who will be confused to follow the story, the scenes of which are packaged de javu for the night of their meeting. Gossip comet approaching the earth, is the audience's reasoning during the duration of Coherence 1 hour 29 minutes.

With the phenomenal ignorance of science to come their way, the easygoing manner and pleasantries of the cast wash away the focus on the dramatic , even though the full conflict will begin with this phenomenal. But the actor named Hobs, who in the dialogue said has a relative who works on comet research, does not have perfect clarity to describe a tension that is still visible from the indifference of each character. With that, the acting weakness of the actors who psychologically have to succeed, becomes one of the weaknesses in this film. But the flow of the scene presented, managed to be understood by the audience with maximum focus.

The audience is challenged in digesting scenes that deliver the same characters and set locations in one problem, which is like a multiverse dimension that is analogous to the distance between stairs on the earth's surface, which is caused by an approaching comet. Here we can guess which house is really the residence of Beth and Hugh. The closeness that does not want to be separated by a relationship that is considered the dimension of reality, makes each character want to maintain their dimensional form. So that the randomness of life is imagined in the story idea Out of The Box by James Ward.

Imagine our lives being messed up by the same form but a different world. This is where the actors are less successful in their agility in starting conflicts. Or the director's instructions that are anticlimactic cause this to happen in the ending that is felt. It's just that the message conveyed, in my opinion, is very relevant to life, where some people want to repeat and even replace the people they care about. Maybe that's what I caught in the film Coherence. But behind it all, there is a meaning that can be considered, that is, don't trust the people closest to you, even householders who have lived together for years, we cannot fully trust them.

Interesting premise, but could be much better.

1. Why do none of the characters try to meet each other? I would be soooo curious to meet my alter self and say "hello". I wouldn't be afraid, either. It's me! I like myself, no?

I think the filmmakers decided not to show that option because it would have doubled or tripled the budget to bring up the special effects to allow an actor to duplicate himself or herself in the same shot. Pity.

2. What are they scared of? It's just a comet, for goodness' sake. True, multiple universes may be unsettling when confronted personally, but think of it... it's just another version of harmless, boring you.

3. No need for shaky camera. There's no running or going through a forest.

4. The dialogue felt a bit weird. I've been to a few dinner parties (yup among yuppies too) and I don't know people who talk like that.

5. The lead actress at the end doesn't hesitate to knock her alter ego out. Really? Can you imagine yourself doing that, if your alter ego presented no threat whatsoever? Or just an existential threat only?

COHERENCE is a very interesting premise, but the execution felt pretentious. I get it, in real life, people actually do talk all over each other and interrupt each other, but did the writers and actors have to to it to THIS extent? Half the time, I couldn't make out what the hell characters were saying or talking about! I couldn't get over the fact at how CALMLY this group of people just took the news that they were in an infinite dimension. There was no one freaking out, there was no one saying that it was nonsense, no one saying that this must be some sort of joke. The actors played the parts way too self-aware. Speaking of, the acting was pretty much the same across the board. None of the characters felt unique. Every character was just a generic, middle-class, wine-drinking, yoga-class-talking yuppie. And the camera-shaking was too much. The ending is where this thing gets even remotely engaging, but by then it's way too late. Better talent could have made this futile exercise actually...COHERENT!