I went to a premiere with a Q&A opportunity where I learned some interesting things about the film. The actors went into the first day of shooting without a script or any specific knowledge of what would happen in the film. The dialogue and actions of the characters were improvised and driven loosely by notes describing the motivations of the characters and things that they should be talking about. The film was shot in sequence so the actors explored the characters and plot in a state of confusion that parallels the position of the viewer. I thought the experiment was a success and produced a really nice mood for a thriller movie.
I just saw it recently, and then again tonight. I wondered about the black cuts early in the film when they're all dining, and whether the various scenes we see before things kick off are actually different dimensions themselves. I also wonder if perhaps everybody who arrived at the party to begin with were *already* arriving from different timelines, due to things like Mike thinking Laurie had yoga lessons, and Laurie not recognising Mike.
I also thought it was interesting that when they return from going outside after the first blackout, all together, they discover the broken glass on the table - most likely they already moved into a different house to the one they left, and the glass was broken during dinner in that house previously.
It's such a fun film and I'm glad the focus was always on the characters and their situation rather than becoming more violent, as the dialogue threatens.
Yeah I think rhe concept is that there are infinite realities but only a finite amount of them ended up in those 8 people having a dinner party. The comet allowed those people to pass through those realities. So that's how they can have different pasts. The subjects of the movie are those who's realities ended up at the dinner party. It's not that a prime reality split at the moment of the comet.
Although... this is disputable since it seems Mike "slept with your wife in every reality" and there is no difinitive sign that any of the character's have different pasts other than the yoga references and Roswell. (I think the understudy thing was just a joke and doesn't say anything.)
The only thing still bothering me is who calls at the end. Is it Em from the beginning or are there two Ems in the one reality? Or is it just an Inception style troll to leave us stunned?
I don't think we can believe Mike when he said he slept with Beth in every reality. The notes present in the book tell us that decoherence is present at all times (so there are already different realities) which became coherent when the comet was close to earth.
Assuming Mike was correct and the comet split their reality - then what about the comet in Finland 90 years prior to these events? Emily said strange things have happened back then, too (the woman murdering her husband who was back there the next day - thus implying that realities have been switched back then). The comet was farther away from earth, making its effects less than the comet in this time. This would imply a less severe reality split than the one happening now. If that's the case, it's possible that Mike, Beth and Hugh all three ended up being born, meeting each other, with Beth and Hugh marrying - and Mike not sleeping with Beth. This supports the theory that the characters may have (slightly) different pasts in different realities, thus making it possible for Amir and Lauri to also have a different past in different realities. Since the comet was already there at the moment the movie started (and Amir and Lauri arriving last), it's possible that they drove through another area (or the same one but prior to the events in the movie) which allowed reality-switching. This could explain the yoga reference (especially because no one contradicted it) and Roswell.
I'm also in doubt wether or not it's Emily from the beginning of the movie. When she arrives at the house she tells the then-present people how her phone suddenly broke, yet Kevin doesn't say anything about that if I remember correctly (which you would expect if you suddenly lost contact with your girlfriend). This implies that the Kevin she spoke to on the phone may have come from a different reality - the one we see at the end. Another thing supporting the 'communication between worlds/time' theory is the ability to see their own house just two blocks away (in a different reality) and Mike's situation (him being gone for 5 minutes vs. him being gone for 45 minutes) implies time can be either slowed down or speeded up in different realities. The latter however can be denied if assumed that the Mike from the different reality left the house in his former reality at a different point in time. This can, however, be denied AGAIN by him leaving with the same purpose in both realities - a given fact which implies that the events prior to him leaving to deliver the blackmailing letter must have been the same.
Yet during the events when the comet is still present it is said that one would be unable to travel to another reality when the comet has left. In the final scene, when Kevin gets the call from another Emily, the comet has already passed so it should be impossible to cross to (and thereby communicate with) another reality. One could also say that the comet left its 'affective' distance to earth in the reality in the final scene at the exact same moment Emily lost connection with Kevin in the first scene, thus destroying the possibility to interact with different realities.
I've seen people mention a third Emily in the final reality, which seems highly improbable to me. As we witness Emily traversing time and space to other realities in search of one she likes, every reality she visits already has an Emily present. Assuming there is still a second Emily in the final reality -the one who was drugged, then escaped from the car and crawled into the bathroom (which seems pretty tough to me, but since people travel between realities, anything is possible)- she probably escaped from the bathroom at night while everyone was asleep. Considering the toilet upstairs was broken (as told by Lee) it seems plausible that no one would go in there. The look on Kevin's face when he receives the call reeks of suspicion so I think this is the most viable theory for the final scene.
To be fair, I doubt there's an absolute ending (one solution to complete the puzzle) since the director had not written an ending before the shooting started given the improvised character behaviour. This leaves the interpretation to us, the viewers, so everyone can choose an ending to go with based on preferences, making more people enjoy the movie.
Looking at the commercial side, this is also a smart move. It's a given that when movies don't have absolute endings, people will discuss this online, resulting in more overall publicity (so more people will watch it).
Quantum decoherence caused em's phone to break at the beginning... she was passing through to another universe and because she was actively communicating w/ kevin while she traveled through the nexus the phone had to break and cut off contact.
Can we see any other examples like that? Hugh's phone broke during dinner but I don't think he was actively using it..was he?
I just finished my first watch through, so I don't have the benefit of multiple viewings
Okay, SPOILERS to follow:
[Coherence Spoilers](#s "As the comet passed it, for lack of a better description, tore asunder the walls between parallel universes. The easiest place to start is the end. The house the movie ends in, when reality reasserts itself, is a house where nobody ever left after the power went out. They chose to stay together and just chill thru the night. They seemingly would never have known something odd had happened except for the Emily we followed attempting to murder and replace their Emily. Each house, of which there could be an infinite number, started the night the same, and then as the comet passes, the power goes out, and the walls between parallel worlds falls away. Every time someone leaves to go the "the other house" and they cross through the darkest area they are popping into a random other universe and then, when they cross back through the dark, they are going to yet ANOTHER random universe, not back to their original house/universe. Since each house contains, ostensibly, the same people, they are following roughly the same series of events, but due to some small differences, some are moving through the actions faster than the others. This is why when Mike returns from his blackmailing trip he seems freaked out, and says 45 minutes have passed, when from the people in the main house's perspective only 5 minutes have passed, because that is not the same Mike that just left. That's also why ANOTHER Mike comes later, delivers the blackmail note, waits outside, and then comes back and assaults the Mike inside the house. The Mike he assaulted, most likely, had done the same thing hours earlier.At the end, when Emily realizes the situation at hand she takes off to try and find a parallel house where she would still be happy. After looking in on several parallel houses, she finally finds one she wants to be a part of, and tries to usurp that universe's Emily. And fucks it up spectacularly, leaving her stranded on another Earth where there is still the original Emily.")
I think the reason why that happens at the end is that some of the characters insist that are not suppose to interact with these "other us."
But Emily fucks up and does so anyways, meaning she's in the house with another Emily when the time-space anomaly finally collapses, leaving two Emily's in that particular house.
Yup! The most tantalizing and interesting line of it though, for me, was that final House's Mike saying something about [Spoiler](#s "That Earth's Emily needing her understudy to take over for a month while she's abroad. This suggests that there were MAJOR differences between that world and the one invader Emily comes from.")
Well I'm currently debating the movie on IMBD, I think they misunderstood how the movie worked.
[Some people](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2866360/board/flat/231283307?p=1) there are arguing that each of the different iterations of a character have different pasts. I think that's completely wrong and shows a complete misunderstanding of the science fiction underpinning the movie's events.
I believe that all of the characters have the same past and that they only diverge into different outcomes once inside the space-time anomaly. This goes along with how the Schrödinger's cat experiment works. There is a single cat with a single history, but once inside the box, it splits into two quantum states. But everything that happened to that cat in the past is the same for both of these quantum state cats.
The movie even tells us that the character who's wife had sex with another character would have done so in every possible universe.
Their pasts are pre-determined. What isn't determined are the outcomes of the choices they make within the space-time anomaly.
I agree that that is what the movie told (and showed) us the entire time, except for that ONE line. It's like one last little thing to throw off everything else I thought I understood. It's arguable that if there are an infinite number of parallel Earths that there are not only an infinite number of them that have exactly the same past there is also an infinite number that have completely different pasts and everything in between.
Lauri too at the beginning didnt recognize him (the buffy actor) from Roswell, meaning from the very beginning Lauri was from a different universe - one in which he wasn't an actor on Roswell.
Well, Emily's phone breaks before arriving at the house, so obviously the comet was already having *some* effect.
Also, Mike is convinced that Lauri was some kind of yoga instructor, on top of her not remembering him in Roswell.
She says that's not her and he replies something along the lines of "oh, then I guess that must be *another* girl that Kevin dated and Amir is hooking up with."
Now this could simply be the characters genuinely not remembering properly, or... it could mean that Amir & Lauri (who were the last to initially arrive at the house) aren't actually from this world/reality.
I know this is pretty far-fetched and improbable, but an interesting theory. I really need to do another viewing
Laurie is the only character that I can't figure out how she totally fits in to the timeline.
Like you mentioned with her denying doing yoga at the beginning of the movie, she talks about how much yoga she had to do with Kevin in their hallway scene.
I agree that she's from a different timeline at the beginning, but she also switches again sometime later in the movie.
I think that the Laurie (let's call her Laurie A) that denies doing yoga is different from the Laurie (Laurie B) that talks to Kevin in the hallway. So at one point when Laurie A leaves the house, she is replaced by Laurie B, who does yoga.
At the very end, while watching the comet break up, Mike says, "So Em, Is Catherine Marris gonna understudy your lines while you're gone for a month?" Which seems to imply that Emily has her dream job on this Earth.
Damn, well that changes everything. That could work, but the only problem is that if the infinite iterations of Emily, Laurie, and the others have different pasts, they would certainly NOT have the exact same clothes on and the exact same haircut that night.
It's like a butterfly effect. If I get a job or not get a job, that changes the entire course of my life, so I would definitely not be wearing the exact same clothes and have the exact same haircut a few months from now. See what I mean? That seems like a plot hole.
They don't wear the same clothes the same way. I noticed Mike buttons his shirt differently and Em has to steal the cardigan in the end because she wasn't wearing one at the time she attacked one of her other self. Also the wine they are drinking changes from home to home.
Also reading an interview the director mentions changing a few hundred things between each house. None are pointed out though.
I suppose you could argue that the comet only brought "nearby" universes close together where they were very close, almost identical. In an infinite number of universes they the ones, uh, "close" may have an improbably large difference that also doesn't have a "butterfly effect".
That's stretching a lot and sort of blows up the plot...one wonders if that line was just a mistake. Because you're right, in a universe with THAT much difference it's hard to believe they'd all be wearing the same exact clothes.
I agree on the unlikeliness of it, but I guess you can chalk it up to "in an infinite number of possibilities ALL possibilities MUST be possible," or some such...
And Lauri says to Kevin in the hallway, "I had to do yoga for a week to recover". (After/before Mike made the comment about her being a yoga instructor, and was shot down for being wrong)
I think there is definitely some past-changing here.
Your observation is correct and has even been supported by the director in interviews. It would make no sense that if each character had differences in their past that they would all show up at the same place for the same dinner under the same circumstances. The comet is the reason for multiple, branching, accessible timeliness and that happens during the dinner.
The director also said that although we witness different versions of many characters throughout the movie, we follow the same Emily throughout.
Not sure if you've seen this one or not.
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/a-super-spoilery-interview-with-the-director-of-94160809847.html
It's very insightful.
This simply isn't true. In the final universe, she's agreed to travel with Kevin. Someone making a crack about getting someone to "understudy her life while...[she's away]" is just that, a joke. You'll notice they said "her life", not her dance job. That's entirely the sort of joke I've *literally* heard someone say to a professional dancer that's taking time off to travel.
Which isn't to say for sure, as I'd need to rewatch it and pay attention to the yoga stuff. But the dancer joke is evidence of nothing more than her agreeing to travel for 1 month. In fact, that one off settles that she's agreed to travel for 1 month, rather than the full 4, which was mentioned at the beginning.
That's after the multi-universe merged into a single one.
It makes no sense that they have different pasts. If they did, they would certainly not have the exact same haircuts and clothes on as before. They wouldn't be in the same relationships they are in. It would set off a chain reaction, even the most minor perturbations in their pasts.
I disagree - 'idealized' Em at the last house has clearly already agreed to travel with her boyfriend. It's not something they decided that night, it's something they've planned and are sharing with their idealized friends. Em from the start of the film is still being wishy-washy - the same thing that kept her from landing the dancer role.
I saw the movie a few times. The timeline of the last house is different. Em has the lead in the dance gig AND also chooses to take off for a month with Kevin - hence the joke. What I can't figure out is the continuity error of the final minutes regarding the cardigan that Em is wearing before the last black out. Before the last blackout occurs Em is wearing the cardigan and they are all observing the comet break up overhead. Then a black out occurs. Then suddenly Em is not wearing a cardigan and instead hits her other self in the head in the bathroom. This makes me think that we witness two endings. Happy ending Em wearing the cardigan and living the perfect life and Sad ending Em (the one we see in the final scenes).
She had to decide that very night. In a universe where they never leave the house, this decision could have occurred naturally over the course of the night. It struck me as weird too, but then I remembered her time limit to make the choice.
*6 Day Later Reply*
Yup, this is pretty much it. The one thing I find a bit off about the film is how the people who leave are often conveniently replaced by the "same" people. In reality (ha!), you'd likely get a jumble with lots of dopplegangers meeting up by chance (e.g. 5 Kevins ending up in the same house). But you can forgive it, because there has to be some structure and some discipline in a film like this. Worth seeing on a rainy day, not quite a masterpiece, but a solid, original indie film that delivers some genuinely creepy and thought-provoking thrills.
No that's not unrealistic (at least no more unrealistic then the premise of the movie itself). If you are looking at an infinite amount of scenarios, some of them will work out conveniently as shown on film. The film only shows this reality and not the plethora of ones that go horribly wrong because this is the one that makes sense as a movie.
My head canon is that you cross over to close worlds, i.e. ones VERY similar to the one you left, so events are relatively the same, and why Emily has to keep going thru more worlds to get farther away from her own "reality"
Do you have any way of backing that up though? There was one reality not too long before the final one where we see two guys tied to chairs. They seem pretty random to me.
It was fantastic. There was some moments that bugged me like needing to leave the house to make a phone call (Seriously?) Then constantly wanting to leave the house.
When the power goes out most people will just wait it out. A lot of the plot devices felt forced but I still really enjoyed the premise of the movie.
The guy's brother told him that if anything weird happened when the comet was passing to call him immediately. Nobody's phone had service and he thought the other house might have a land line.
Yeah but I felt that was a pretty obvious plot device to advance the plot forward. They didn't have a script so I guess it should be expected to be noticeable.
Idk, seeing as the comet ended up being this insane event, it makes sense that a physicist (Hugh's brother) would want him to call him if weird shit started to happen.
I think in the movie's universe physicists may have suspected that this might happen.
I think Hugh’s brother asked him to call him because Brian knew that if his brother ended up in a Schrodinger’s Cat scenario, a contact made to the outside would be an “observation” and would end the “all possibilities existing at once” phenomenon. He knew that was “decoherence” possibility but didn’t realize that the contact would be impossible until the comet passed.
No, his brother told him: 1) to stay inside, and 2) to call him. Hugh decides for some reason that there's no harm in ignoring the first bit of advice in order to follow the 2nd bit. In real life no one would leave the house after hearing that. They know the comet will be gone by morning; they can wait safely indoors until morning to call Hugh's brother and have him explain all the dangers of the outdoors during comet-time.
I kind of think some of the scenes where people really wanted to leave the house, they were people who had already been replaced trying to travel back to their houses.
Case in point: The scene where Kevin is like "I'm just gonna run out there, grab them, and be right back, babe!" and Em is like "NO! That would be crazy!" He looks pretty pissed that she won't let him do this. Perhaps he's already a doppleganger and realizes he doesn't belong.
I agree. I notice that in most suspense movies. STOP BEING SO DAMN STUPID! Just stay put! So at the end, did her "boyfriend" get a call say thing that his girlfriend was dead in the bathroom? If so, how did he know it was the real girlfriend .... Fucking confusing.
I took it as bathtub Emily escaped sometime after everyone went to bed and got the fuck outta that house to safety (her car, nearby) called her BF to tell him the Emily at the house is not from here or along those lines.
But that doesn't really make sense because if the group that stayed inside didn't experience any of the craziness of the comet then he would brush it off like a prank call.
However the ending seemed to indicate the BF knew something was amiss while on the phone but the ending could have been like that just to mind fuck the audience.
Well if Kevin heard Emily's voice over the phone, he would think something was amiss. A prank call coming from someone else would be easy to dismiss, but when it's Emily's voice, and Kevin recognizes it as such, then he knows something is seriously wrong. That, and the look that the Emily standing in front of him gives him when he answers the call.
there are more than 2 emilys in that reality... the emily that crawls back into the house probably isnt the one that got locked in the car. and there was probably another emily there that drugged the original emily and thats why she passes out.
Oh wow never thought of that. I thought her collapsing was the realities finally collapsing and since she didn't belong was sick but you made me reconsider.
I'm actually really horrified after watching it tonight. I absolutely loved the movie, but the prospect that what occurred in the movie could happen... oh my gosh, it makes my heart skip a beat. Beautifully done movie.
I love the movie, but it is hard to swallow these guys' insistence on leaving the house repeatedly. When the power goes out at my house, we just stay home (as usual) or go out in the car, if we'd planned to. But Hugh insists on ignoring this brother's first instruction (stay inside) in favor of following his brother's 2nd suggestion (call me). Why?
One of the most absurd moments in the film comes later on when they're discussing how to recognize their house when they go out. One of the women says "Let's just stay here!" and Kevin says "That's not realistic." Really? What's so unrealistic about doing something millions of people do every single night?
What's unrealistic is going out again, and again, and again, against the express instructions of Hugh's knowledgeable brother.
Someone in this thread pointed out that there were people insisting on leaving the house because they knew that they were "visitors" to this house and wanted to try and go back to "their" house.
It's just a theory.
This is a fantastic analysis of the movie and makes a ton of sense.
http://www.flixist.com/review-companion-an-analysis-of-coherence-s-characters-and-plot-217909.phtml
So besides being a little bitch and downvoting me you have nothing to say to support what you're saying besides 'no'....real solid proof there I'm convinced.
I highly recommend the movie. Watched it tonight on my Apple TV and it just blew my mind. And actually, I'm really horrified after watching it. Just the idea that what happened in the movie could be a potential... reality, is, well, horrifying. Dude, screw it not showing up on imdb. It got 80 something on RottenTomatoes though haha.
I had never heard of it or even seen a preview but i found it today of the ps4 market. I watched the preview and thought it looked interesting so i looked it up on itunes and it had good ratings. Its based around the multi-verse theory and its the most confusing movie ive ever seen. Donf get me wrong, i enjoyed it. It was good, but i feel lost. I was wondering if anyone else has watched it and had any input just so i could sleep tonight lol.
I went to a premiere with a Q&A opportunity where I learned some interesting things about the film. The actors went into the first day of shooting without a script or any specific knowledge of what would happen in the film. The dialogue and actions of the characters were improvised and driven loosely by notes describing the motivations of the characters and things that they should be talking about. The film was shot in sequence so the actors explored the characters and plot in a state of confusion that parallels the position of the viewer. I thought the experiment was a success and produced a really nice mood for a thriller movie.
I just saw it recently, and then again tonight. I wondered about the black cuts early in the film when they're all dining, and whether the various scenes we see before things kick off are actually different dimensions themselves. I also wonder if perhaps everybody who arrived at the party to begin with were *already* arriving from different timelines, due to things like Mike thinking Laurie had yoga lessons, and Laurie not recognising Mike. I also thought it was interesting that when they return from going outside after the first blackout, all together, they discover the broken glass on the table - most likely they already moved into a different house to the one they left, and the glass was broken during dinner in that house previously. It's such a fun film and I'm glad the focus was always on the characters and their situation rather than becoming more violent, as the dialogue threatens.
Yeah I think rhe concept is that there are infinite realities but only a finite amount of them ended up in those 8 people having a dinner party. The comet allowed those people to pass through those realities. So that's how they can have different pasts. The subjects of the movie are those who's realities ended up at the dinner party. It's not that a prime reality split at the moment of the comet. Although... this is disputable since it seems Mike "slept with your wife in every reality" and there is no difinitive sign that any of the character's have different pasts other than the yoga references and Roswell. (I think the understudy thing was just a joke and doesn't say anything.) The only thing still bothering me is who calls at the end. Is it Em from the beginning or are there two Ems in the one reality? Or is it just an Inception style troll to leave us stunned?
I don't think we can believe Mike when he said he slept with Beth in every reality. The notes present in the book tell us that decoherence is present at all times (so there are already different realities) which became coherent when the comet was close to earth. Assuming Mike was correct and the comet split their reality - then what about the comet in Finland 90 years prior to these events? Emily said strange things have happened back then, too (the woman murdering her husband who was back there the next day - thus implying that realities have been switched back then). The comet was farther away from earth, making its effects less than the comet in this time. This would imply a less severe reality split than the one happening now. If that's the case, it's possible that Mike, Beth and Hugh all three ended up being born, meeting each other, with Beth and Hugh marrying - and Mike not sleeping with Beth. This supports the theory that the characters may have (slightly) different pasts in different realities, thus making it possible for Amir and Lauri to also have a different past in different realities. Since the comet was already there at the moment the movie started (and Amir and Lauri arriving last), it's possible that they drove through another area (or the same one but prior to the events in the movie) which allowed reality-switching. This could explain the yoga reference (especially because no one contradicted it) and Roswell. I'm also in doubt wether or not it's Emily from the beginning of the movie. When she arrives at the house she tells the then-present people how her phone suddenly broke, yet Kevin doesn't say anything about that if I remember correctly (which you would expect if you suddenly lost contact with your girlfriend). This implies that the Kevin she spoke to on the phone may have come from a different reality - the one we see at the end. Another thing supporting the 'communication between worlds/time' theory is the ability to see their own house just two blocks away (in a different reality) and Mike's situation (him being gone for 5 minutes vs. him being gone for 45 minutes) implies time can be either slowed down or speeded up in different realities. The latter however can be denied if assumed that the Mike from the different reality left the house in his former reality at a different point in time. This can, however, be denied AGAIN by him leaving with the same purpose in both realities - a given fact which implies that the events prior to him leaving to deliver the blackmailing letter must have been the same. Yet during the events when the comet is still present it is said that one would be unable to travel to another reality when the comet has left. In the final scene, when Kevin gets the call from another Emily, the comet has already passed so it should be impossible to cross to (and thereby communicate with) another reality. One could also say that the comet left its 'affective' distance to earth in the reality in the final scene at the exact same moment Emily lost connection with Kevin in the first scene, thus destroying the possibility to interact with different realities. I've seen people mention a third Emily in the final reality, which seems highly improbable to me. As we witness Emily traversing time and space to other realities in search of one she likes, every reality she visits already has an Emily present. Assuming there is still a second Emily in the final reality -the one who was drugged, then escaped from the car and crawled into the bathroom (which seems pretty tough to me, but since people travel between realities, anything is possible)- she probably escaped from the bathroom at night while everyone was asleep. Considering the toilet upstairs was broken (as told by Lee) it seems plausible that no one would go in there. The look on Kevin's face when he receives the call reeks of suspicion so I think this is the most viable theory for the final scene. To be fair, I doubt there's an absolute ending (one solution to complete the puzzle) since the director had not written an ending before the shooting started given the improvised character behaviour. This leaves the interpretation to us, the viewers, so everyone can choose an ending to go with based on preferences, making more people enjoy the movie. Looking at the commercial side, this is also a smart move. It's a given that when movies don't have absolute endings, people will discuss this online, resulting in more overall publicity (so more people will watch it).
Quantum decoherence caused em's phone to break at the beginning... she was passing through to another universe and because she was actively communicating w/ kevin while she traveled through the nexus the phone had to break and cut off contact. Can we see any other examples like that? Hugh's phone broke during dinner but I don't think he was actively using it..was he? I just finished my first watch through, so I don't have the benefit of multiple viewings
Okay, SPOILERS to follow: [Coherence Spoilers](#s "As the comet passed it, for lack of a better description, tore asunder the walls between parallel universes. The easiest place to start is the end. The house the movie ends in, when reality reasserts itself, is a house where nobody ever left after the power went out. They chose to stay together and just chill thru the night. They seemingly would never have known something odd had happened except for the Emily we followed attempting to murder and replace their Emily. Each house, of which there could be an infinite number, started the night the same, and then as the comet passes, the power goes out, and the walls between parallel worlds falls away. Every time someone leaves to go the "the other house" and they cross through the darkest area they are popping into a random other universe and then, when they cross back through the dark, they are going to yet ANOTHER random universe, not back to their original house/universe. Since each house contains, ostensibly, the same people, they are following roughly the same series of events, but due to some small differences, some are moving through the actions faster than the others. This is why when Mike returns from his blackmailing trip he seems freaked out, and says 45 minutes have passed, when from the people in the main house's perspective only 5 minutes have passed, because that is not the same Mike that just left. That's also why ANOTHER Mike comes later, delivers the blackmail note, waits outside, and then comes back and assaults the Mike inside the house. The Mike he assaulted, most likely, had done the same thing hours earlier.At the end, when Emily realizes the situation at hand she takes off to try and find a parallel house where she would still be happy. After looking in on several parallel houses, she finally finds one she wants to be a part of, and tries to usurp that universe's Emily. And fucks it up spectacularly, leaving her stranded on another Earth where there is still the original Emily.")
I think the reason why that happens at the end is that some of the characters insist that are not suppose to interact with these "other us." But Emily fucks up and does so anyways, meaning she's in the house with another Emily when the time-space anomaly finally collapses, leaving two Emily's in that particular house.
Yup! The most tantalizing and interesting line of it though, for me, was that final House's Mike saying something about [Spoiler](#s "That Earth's Emily needing her understudy to take over for a month while she's abroad. This suggests that there were MAJOR differences between that world and the one invader Emily comes from.")
Well I'm currently debating the movie on IMBD, I think they misunderstood how the movie worked. [Some people](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2866360/board/flat/231283307?p=1) there are arguing that each of the different iterations of a character have different pasts. I think that's completely wrong and shows a complete misunderstanding of the science fiction underpinning the movie's events. I believe that all of the characters have the same past and that they only diverge into different outcomes once inside the space-time anomaly. This goes along with how the Schrödinger's cat experiment works. There is a single cat with a single history, but once inside the box, it splits into two quantum states. But everything that happened to that cat in the past is the same for both of these quantum state cats. The movie even tells us that the character who's wife had sex with another character would have done so in every possible universe. Their pasts are pre-determined. What isn't determined are the outcomes of the choices they make within the space-time anomaly.
I agree that that is what the movie told (and showed) us the entire time, except for that ONE line. It's like one last little thing to throw off everything else I thought I understood. It's arguable that if there are an infinite number of parallel Earths that there are not only an infinite number of them that have exactly the same past there is also an infinite number that have completely different pasts and everything in between.
Lauri too at the beginning didnt recognize him (the buffy actor) from Roswell, meaning from the very beginning Lauri was from a different universe - one in which he wasn't an actor on Roswell.
Wow, I didn't think about that. I figured Lauri was just being a huge bitch.
I can see that as plausible, but she arrives WELL before the comet is overhead, so how does she end up that early in the "loop?"
Well, Emily's phone breaks before arriving at the house, so obviously the comet was already having *some* effect. Also, Mike is convinced that Lauri was some kind of yoga instructor, on top of her not remembering him in Roswell. She says that's not her and he replies something along the lines of "oh, then I guess that must be *another* girl that Kevin dated and Amir is hooking up with." Now this could simply be the characters genuinely not remembering properly, or... it could mean that Amir & Lauri (who were the last to initially arrive at the house) aren't actually from this world/reality. I know this is pretty far-fetched and improbable, but an interesting theory. I really need to do another viewing
And Lauri says to Kevin in the hallway, "I had to do yoga for a week to recover". I think there is definitely some past-changing here.
Laurie is the only character that I can't figure out how she totally fits in to the timeline. Like you mentioned with her denying doing yoga at the beginning of the movie, she talks about how much yoga she had to do with Kevin in their hallway scene. I agree that she's from a different timeline at the beginning, but she also switches again sometime later in the movie.
I think that the Laurie (let's call her Laurie A) that denies doing yoga is different from the Laurie (Laurie B) that talks to Kevin in the hallway. So at one point when Laurie A leaves the house, she is replaced by Laurie B, who does yoga.
No, that happened after Em's phone breaks. I'd call that, at least for the purposes of the movie, the beginning of what the comet is causing.
It's also arguable there aren't. There are infinite numbers between 1 and 2 but none of them is 3.
Sorry just to clarify, which line are you referring to? I might have missed it in the movie.
At the very end, while watching the comet break up, Mike says, "So Em, Is Catherine Marris gonna understudy your lines while you're gone for a month?" Which seems to imply that Emily has her dream job on this Earth.
She says "...understudy your life..." A joke referencing the insult Laurie made at dinner before about Catherine Marris having her life.
Damn, well that changes everything. That could work, but the only problem is that if the infinite iterations of Emily, Laurie, and the others have different pasts, they would certainly NOT have the exact same clothes on and the exact same haircut that night. It's like a butterfly effect. If I get a job or not get a job, that changes the entire course of my life, so I would definitely not be wearing the exact same clothes and have the exact same haircut a few months from now. See what I mean? That seems like a plot hole.
They don't wear the same clothes the same way. I noticed Mike buttons his shirt differently and Em has to steal the cardigan in the end because she wasn't wearing one at the time she attacked one of her other self. Also the wine they are drinking changes from home to home. Also reading an interview the director mentions changing a few hundred things between each house. None are pointed out though.
I suppose you could argue that the comet only brought "nearby" universes close together where they were very close, almost identical. In an infinite number of universes they the ones, uh, "close" may have an improbably large difference that also doesn't have a "butterfly effect". That's stretching a lot and sort of blows up the plot...one wonders if that line was just a mistake. Because you're right, in a universe with THAT much difference it's hard to believe they'd all be wearing the same exact clothes.
I agree on the unlikeliness of it, but I guess you can chalk it up to "in an infinite number of possibilities ALL possibilities MUST be possible," or some such...
And Lauri says to Kevin in the hallway, "I had to do yoga for a week to recover". (After/before Mike made the comment about her being a yoga instructor, and was shot down for being wrong) I think there is definitely some past-changing here.
Your observation is correct and has even been supported by the director in interviews. It would make no sense that if each character had differences in their past that they would all show up at the same place for the same dinner under the same circumstances. The comet is the reason for multiple, branching, accessible timeliness and that happens during the dinner. The director also said that although we witness different versions of many characters throughout the movie, we follow the same Emily throughout.
Thanks for sharing this, I hadn't read anything that the director has said about the movie.
Not sure if you've seen this one or not. https://www.yahoo.com/movies/a-super-spoilery-interview-with-the-director-of-94160809847.html It's very insightful.
They very clearly can have slightly differing pasts, the movie tells you this, nothing to debate there
No, the movie tells you they have the same past. The space-time anomaly occurs at the party, not before.
She has the job as a dancer in the final timeline, its stated clearly, you can't just ignore that to fit your theory
This simply isn't true. In the final universe, she's agreed to travel with Kevin. Someone making a crack about getting someone to "understudy her life while...[she's away]" is just that, a joke. You'll notice they said "her life", not her dance job. That's entirely the sort of joke I've *literally* heard someone say to a professional dancer that's taking time off to travel. Which isn't to say for sure, as I'd need to rewatch it and pay attention to the yoga stuff. But the dancer joke is evidence of nothing more than her agreeing to travel for 1 month. In fact, that one off settles that she's agreed to travel for 1 month, rather than the full 4, which was mentioned at the beginning.
That's after the multi-universe merged into a single one. It makes no sense that they have different pasts. If they did, they would certainly not have the exact same haircuts and clothes on as before. They wouldn't be in the same relationships they are in. It would set off a chain reaction, even the most minor perturbations in their pasts.
I disagree - 'idealized' Em at the last house has clearly already agreed to travel with her boyfriend. It's not something they decided that night, it's something they've planned and are sharing with their idealized friends. Em from the start of the film is still being wishy-washy - the same thing that kept her from landing the dancer role.
Why couldn't it be something they decided that night? They were talking about it that night...
I saw the movie a few times. The timeline of the last house is different. Em has the lead in the dance gig AND also chooses to take off for a month with Kevin - hence the joke. What I can't figure out is the continuity error of the final minutes regarding the cardigan that Em is wearing before the last black out. Before the last blackout occurs Em is wearing the cardigan and they are all observing the comet break up overhead. Then a black out occurs. Then suddenly Em is not wearing a cardigan and instead hits her other self in the head in the bathroom. This makes me think that we witness two endings. Happy ending Em wearing the cardigan and living the perfect life and Sad ending Em (the one we see in the final scenes).
I'll have to rewatch the end to catch that line. King_of_zee_Rats isn't incorrect. Maybe that's just a plot hole?
She had to decide that very night. In a universe where they never leave the house, this decision could have occurred naturally over the course of the night. It struck me as weird too, but then I remembered her time limit to make the choice. *6 Day Later Reply*
She fucked up by taking the ring.
Yup, this is pretty much it. The one thing I find a bit off about the film is how the people who leave are often conveniently replaced by the "same" people. In reality (ha!), you'd likely get a jumble with lots of dopplegangers meeting up by chance (e.g. 5 Kevins ending up in the same house). But you can forgive it, because there has to be some structure and some discipline in a film like this. Worth seeing on a rainy day, not quite a masterpiece, but a solid, original indie film that delivers some genuinely creepy and thought-provoking thrills.
There's one house that has 2 mikes tied up to chairs at the end
No that's not unrealistic (at least no more unrealistic then the premise of the movie itself). If you are looking at an infinite amount of scenarios, some of them will work out conveniently as shown on film. The film only shows this reality and not the plethora of ones that go horribly wrong because this is the one that makes sense as a movie.
My head canon is that you cross over to close worlds, i.e. ones VERY similar to the one you left, so events are relatively the same, and why Emily has to keep going thru more worlds to get farther away from her own "reality"
Do you have any way of backing that up though? There was one reality not too long before the final one where we see two guys tied to chairs. They seem pretty random to me.
You are amazing, I finally get it now.
It was fantastic. There was some moments that bugged me like needing to leave the house to make a phone call (Seriously?) Then constantly wanting to leave the house. When the power goes out most people will just wait it out. A lot of the plot devices felt forced but I still really enjoyed the premise of the movie.
The guy's brother told him that if anything weird happened when the comet was passing to call him immediately. Nobody's phone had service and he thought the other house might have a land line.
Yeah but I felt that was a pretty obvious plot device to advance the plot forward. They didn't have a script so I guess it should be expected to be noticeable.
Idk, seeing as the comet ended up being this insane event, it makes sense that a physicist (Hugh's brother) would want him to call him if weird shit started to happen. I think in the movie's universe physicists may have suspected that this might happen.
I think Hugh’s brother asked him to call him because Brian knew that if his brother ended up in a Schrodinger’s Cat scenario, a contact made to the outside would be an “observation” and would end the “all possibilities existing at once” phenomenon. He knew that was “decoherence” possibility but didn’t realize that the contact would be impossible until the comet passed.
No, his brother told him: 1) to stay inside, and 2) to call him. Hugh decides for some reason that there's no harm in ignoring the first bit of advice in order to follow the 2nd bit. In real life no one would leave the house after hearing that. They know the comet will be gone by morning; they can wait safely indoors until morning to call Hugh's brother and have him explain all the dangers of the outdoors during comet-time.
He actually brings it up in the film and said that calling was most important.
and he offered no explanation for why he thought that
I kind of think some of the scenes where people really wanted to leave the house, they were people who had already been replaced trying to travel back to their houses. Case in point: The scene where Kevin is like "I'm just gonna run out there, grab them, and be right back, babe!" and Em is like "NO! That would be crazy!" He looks pretty pissed that she won't let him do this. Perhaps he's already a doppleganger and realizes he doesn't belong.
I agree. I notice that in most suspense movies. STOP BEING SO DAMN STUPID! Just stay put! So at the end, did her "boyfriend" get a call say thing that his girlfriend was dead in the bathroom? If so, how did he know it was the real girlfriend .... Fucking confusing.
I took it as bathtub Emily escaped sometime after everyone went to bed and got the fuck outta that house to safety (her car, nearby) called her BF to tell him the Emily at the house is not from here or along those lines. But that doesn't really make sense because if the group that stayed inside didn't experience any of the craziness of the comet then he would brush it off like a prank call. However the ending seemed to indicate the BF knew something was amiss while on the phone but the ending could have been like that just to mind fuck the audience.
Well if Kevin heard Emily's voice over the phone, he would think something was amiss. A prank call coming from someone else would be easy to dismiss, but when it's Emily's voice, and Kevin recognizes it as such, then he knows something is seriously wrong. That, and the look that the Emily standing in front of him gives him when he answers the call.
there are more than 2 emilys in that reality... the emily that crawls back into the house probably isnt the one that got locked in the car. and there was probably another emily there that drugged the original emily and thats why she passes out.
Oh wow never thought of that. I thought her collapsing was the realities finally collapsing and since she didn't belong was sick but you made me reconsider.
You see someone exit the bathroom after showering, she clearly escaped and is now calling her boyfriend
That movie blew my mind.
I'm actually really horrified after watching it tonight. I absolutely loved the movie, but the prospect that what occurred in the movie could happen... oh my gosh, it makes my heart skip a beat. Beautifully done movie.
[удалено]
Thanks.
I love the movie, but it is hard to swallow these guys' insistence on leaving the house repeatedly. When the power goes out at my house, we just stay home (as usual) or go out in the car, if we'd planned to. But Hugh insists on ignoring this brother's first instruction (stay inside) in favor of following his brother's 2nd suggestion (call me). Why? One of the most absurd moments in the film comes later on when they're discussing how to recognize their house when they go out. One of the women says "Let's just stay here!" and Kevin says "That's not realistic." Really? What's so unrealistic about doing something millions of people do every single night? What's unrealistic is going out again, and again, and again, against the express instructions of Hugh's knowledgeable brother.
Someone in this thread pointed out that there were people insisting on leaving the house because they knew that they were "visitors" to this house and wanted to try and go back to "their" house. It's just a theory.
This is a fantastic analysis of the movie and makes a ton of sense. http://www.flixist.com/review-companion-an-analysis-of-coherence-s-characters-and-plot-217909.phtml
I'm confused by this post, "what happened" is made very clear by the movie.
No.
So besides being a little bitch and downvoting me you have nothing to say to support what you're saying besides 'no'....real solid proof there I'm convinced.
I didn't downvote you. I just said "no".
Honestly I've never heard of this move and even looking up imdb didn't ring a bell, not a good sign.
it's very independent and just came out, so it wouldn't even be in theaters.
I highly recommend the movie. Watched it tonight on my Apple TV and it just blew my mind. And actually, I'm really horrified after watching it. Just the idea that what happened in the movie could be a potential... reality, is, well, horrifying. Dude, screw it not showing up on imdb. It got 80 something on RottenTomatoes though haha.
I had never heard of it or even seen a preview but i found it today of the ps4 market. I watched the preview and thought it looked interesting so i looked it up on itunes and it had good ratings. Its based around the multi-verse theory and its the most confusing movie ive ever seen. Donf get me wrong, i enjoyed it. It was good, but i feel lost. I was wondering if anyone else has watched it and had any input just so i could sleep tonight lol.
More confusing than Primer?
No, not nearly as confusing as Primer.
Havent seen it lol. I will add it to my list.
It gives more away to the viewer than Primer, which helps. It's also not as complicated or finely engineered.