For a film where very little happens in front of the camera, Coherence casts quite a spell. Filmed on a micro-budget of $50,000, James Ward Byrkit’s 2014 thriller manages to tease a galaxy-spanning inquiry into the nature of identity, free will and the implications of multiverse theory, all while scarcely leaving the confines of a suburban bungalow. Aided by naturalistic performances from an ensemble of eight relatively unknown actors working without a script, the story gets its hooks in via carefully-planted barbs of suggestion and inference that add up to a horror-adjacent crescendo of drama. It’s not hard to grasp the twist, but it’s nearly impossible to hold all its implications in the mind at once.
Coherence centers on a dinner party at the end of the world, although none of the upwardly-mobile Californians in attendance are aware of that fact yet. At the evening’s outset, our only clue about anything out of the ordinary is an off-hand remark about the approach of Miller’s Comet. The eight dinner party guests banter and schmooze, a group of old friends who are (mostly) comfortable and relaxed with one another. However, what seems like small talk actually introduces themes of duality and dislocation that become relevant once things start getting weird. Positioned as the protagonist, Em (Emily Baldoni) is a professional dancer recently supplanted by a rival who now “has her life.” Her boyfriend, Kevin (Maury Sterling), is inviting her to come with him on a work trip to Vietnam for four months, but Em is indecisive. A late arrival to the party, Laurie (Lauren Maher), used to be Kevin’s girlfriend but is now dating Amir (Alex Manugian), to everyone’s quiet disdain. The dialogue establishing these relationships is freewheeling and overlapping as the camera lurks about the kitchen and peeks over shoulders at the dining room table. The actors were apparently given objectives for their scenes rather than scripted dialogue, and their interactions feel authentically organic. Then the lights go out.
Breaking out the candles and some blue glow sticks, the revelers are unperturbed, happy to shift gears in the evening. It’s only when they discover that the entire neighborhood has gone dark–aside from a single, illuminated house two blocks away–that choices have to be made. Returning from a quick walk to borrow the neighbors’ phone, Hugh (Hugo Armstrong) reveals a disturbing discovery: the other house is the same house, and other versions of themselves are all inside it. Cue the chills.
The characters react according to their established personalities, with some wanting to investigate further, some preferring to hunker down and others unable to stop joking around and drinking. The slide into Twilight Zone-y weirdness is as naturalistic as the earlier chatter, and that’s the key to Coherence‘s beguiling charm. It’s like a Christopher Nolan premise breaking out in the midst of a dinner party. Sticking mostly with Em, the camera follows groups of characters who head outside to investigate, where soupy darkness makes it hard to see who is going where. That’s partly a function of the plot and also, perhaps, a limitation of the film’s camera budget. (Coherence, like a great martial artist, turns its weaknesses into strengths). At one point, the characters get a hold of a physics textbook which suggests something about “quantum decoherence” and the impossibility of alternate realities interacting with one another. Overhead, Miller’s Comet blazes a pathway across the sky. Much is implied with a handful of physics jargon and some stricken expressions, but the characters continue to behave within expected ranges, even as events get stranger.
In stories like Coherence, there’s a point at which the viewer has to surrender to the illogic. Along with the characters, you develop theories, which then get disproven, or semi-proven, and then another twist resets the variables. The earlier suggestions of duality were insufficient; what’s happening here is much more of a mirror gallery, indicated by the accumulation of impossible objects and coincidences. Through it all, the viewer is grounded in Em’s expressive face and brave approach to holding onto the one identity she knows she still possesses.
In the final reel, the stakes get personal for Em, with the tension shifting from the cerebral to the physical. It’s remarkable that the film manages to carry the tension through to this point with such a limited palette of visuals, and essentially no effects. Byrkit, who wrote Coherence with Manugian, hasn’t made a film since, although a cottage industry of “Coherence Explained” videos claims that he’s gathering financing for another project. That would be a welcome development, especially if he’s able to pull off the trick of doing so much with so little again. Until that becomes a reality, Coherence is a criminally underrated gem well worth seeking out.
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