Coherence [DVD]

Coherence is a low budget independently made science fiction movie.With a cast of eight people - including Nicholas Brendon, one time Xander Harris from tv show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.Roughly ninety percent of the film takes place in one room. And the dialogue is largely improvised.It concerns a group of friends who gather together for a dinner party. On a night when a comet is due to pass overhead. Things proceed initially just like any normal evening for them.Then there's no phone service. Or internet. The lights go out. And really strange things start to happen. Can they figure out what's going on, and make it through the night?Low budget movies of this kind obviously don't have the money to be huge special effects laden interstellar extravaganzas. They have to be movies of good plot and ideas instead. Coherence does that by being heavily centred around real science. Quantum physics, to be more specific. And it gets a story from people being caught up in the middle of that. It is a film of character, though, because it's all about how the people involved react to the situation, and the plot is driven by their actions. Not least because, as the making of documentary makes clear, there was no script, just notes for the actors each day of shooting on their character motivations. And they worked from that.It takes a minute or two to get used to the style of the filming, not least because it takes a minute or two to come into focus. But once it does, you quickly get used to things because it looks realistic. And the people talk in a realistic manner. Such as people all laughing at the same time, or trying to get a word in edgeways. It does fade to black whenever it wants to jump the narrative forward. Which also works fine.You might struggle to remember, or even catch, all the character names, but you do get used to them. And it does become pretty compelling viewing once it gets going, leaving you wanting to see what happens next. It does require a lot of attention, and it does force you to keep your wits about you at all times, but there's nothing wrong with a film that wants it's viewers to do that, thus respecting their intelligence.It doesn't quite seem to know how to end, but that's only a minor complaint.Compelling film making. It won't be for everyone, but if you want a bit of intelligent science based science fiction that makes you think, then it's worth a watch.It does contain some violence and a fair few bits of strong language. Epileptics and those who can't handle strobe lighting beware one brief moment of flashing lights.The dvd begins with a couple of trailers, which can be skipped via the next button on the dvd remote.It has the following language and subtitle options:Languages: English.Subtitles: None.It does let you choose between stereo or surround sound.The extras are as follows:A director's commentary.A ten minute long making of documentary. Which is pretty interesting and worth a watch.

What a great little yarn, something straight out of the Twighlight Zone or Black Mirror. A little fun cosy psychological thriller with a science fiction twist, done very well and worth a watch with a glass of Red Wine!

OK, the story isn't perfect and it definitely peaks about 15 minutes before the end, but they had to wrap it up somehow. I think they should have been braver and gone for a different ending, but overall, I thought it was a great premise. The writing is like that throughout, with some exposition being really forced and coming out of nowhere, but overall, the performances were solid and the improv good enough that I could let the forced bits slide. I really liked it. Not everything has to be big name actors and glossy sets/cg etc. I'm glad I took a break from all that really polished stuff and watched what really interests me: people trying to tell different stories through cinema. I watched 21 Bridges the other day, which had a huge budget and great actors, looked amazing etc, but Jesus, I've seen that same story told (good cop unravels conspiracy of bad cops on the take) a hundred times and it was boring AF. This one kept me guessing and the twist was very well handled. I knock off only one star for the forced dialogue and the forced ending, otherwise, highly recommended.

This was a little gem of a movie. I would have awarded it 4/5 but the inventive way they got round the budget with story was worth at least another star. The whole cast and not just Emily Baldoni were solid across the board. Nicholas Brendon, who was stellar in Buffy.. 90s show Buffy being a rival to Friends.. I was struck by how much I had missed Brendon's acting and his ability to easily play the tragic comic.. it's his second skin. I hope to see him in much much more in the future. Make-up Wardrobe.. suitable. Direction (J. Brykit) was a little like found footage but not quite.. no matter it was very enjoyable. Story was a little confusing at times.. but I think perhaps the writer has stumbled across a new subtle genre of horror.. but I won't spoil it for you.

I was quite excited for this. The storyline is right up my alley. Put it on, hubby walked in and asked, is this a documentary? Why is everyone talking over each other? And that's how it begins. People yakking about nothing. Also there's no subtitles on amazon so had to stop it and watch it elsewhere with subtitles because I couldn't understand what anyone was saying. I'm incredibly bored with all the pointless yakking but assume it'll get better, so stick with it.The lights go out and everyone is terrified. A guest wants to go outside and everyone is terrified. Someone knocks the window and everyone is terrified. I'm completely in the dark as to why everyone is hysterical but still stick with it. I assumed the writer wanted to get right to the fun stuff and forgot to set the scene.We start to get to the nitty gritty. Without spoilers, I'll just say they start to realise something is not quite right. But all they have to do is go to sleep or play a game and wait until morning when the comet has passed. Instead they keep running out of the house and coming up with pointless schemes that seems really unnecessary.People have said this is mindbending, but it's absolutely not. Again without spoilers, the predicament they find themselves in is of their own doing because they couldn't just sit their bums down.In the end, there was no storyline, it just didn't make any sense and it was REALLY boring. They also kept trying to throw in random relationship subplots, which added nothing either.As others have said, incoherent would be a more suitable title. I've never watched anything so strange where character reactions just don't make any sense.