If you or someone you know has Amazon Prime, now is the time to watch Coherence, this year’s low-budget, high concept, impossibly twisty brain teaser. Amazon’s video streaming service has added the movie to their library, and it’s one of the best ways you can spend 80 of the remaining minutes in 2014. It’s being called the sci-fi film of the year (it actually debuted at Austin Fantastic Fest in 2013, but got a small theatrical release this year). But calling it a sci-fi film is a bit of a misnomer. It’s more like a dinner party movie with one humdinger of a sci-fi twist.
Coherence is difficult to recap without giving any spoilers, but the plot follows a cast of immediately relatable thirtysomethings whose evening get-together takes some very bizarre twists after a comet passes overhead. The less you know about the movie before you watch it, the better, since the heart of the movie’s brilliance is you trying to figure out just what the Sam Hill is going on. The plot is grounded by a cast of gifted but little-known actors taking on a mostly improvised script shot almost entirely in a single location, but the movie still gets your imagination working overtime, with one of those endings that makes you want to watch it again the second it’s over. But even that feels like sort of a spoiler. You shouldn’t even be reading this. You should be watching Coherence (rated R for language) …
