I don’t know what it’s like to have kids, and I don’t wanna know, but believe me when I say that I would be happy to spend the rest of my life in jail due to the revenge I would enact upon anyone who hurts my cat. I love her like a child, and I know that the love parents feel for their actual children is multitudes stronger. In fact, if given the opportunity, I bet just about any parent on the planet would be happy to traverse multiple universes just to repeatedly bring harm to whoever did their child dirty. I would certainly do so for Doris (my cat).
Case in point: Irene Kelly (Michaela McManus), a grieving mother who lost her daughter to the violence of a serial killer (Jeremy Holm). With the help of a mysterious device, Irene has been jumping into countless parallel universes in the hopes that she’ll eventually find one where she’s not too late to save her daughter. And in the repeated case that she is indeed too late, she takes it upon herself to destroy her daughter’s killer from every last parallel world that he haunts. A bit of catharsis for her, and one less monster out in the multiverse to boot.
It’s a high concept with the potential for massive world-building implications, but writers/directors Kevin and Matthew McManus use it to tell a small, effective story about the limits of humanity, the intoxicating nature of desperation, and ultimately the healing power of family. It’s a sci-fi tale where the sci-fi takes a backseat to the real world, yet the universe-hopping concept is nonetheless utilized to its fullest potential. It’s not a film about the technology itself, but about what a world looks like in which the technology exists.
While not expounded upon explicitly, we get the sense that only a select few know about the ability to leap between worlds, and it’s never explained how Irene got her hands on it. All of this exists in the periphery, and smartly so. It’s not about the why or how, but about what can be done with such powers — and what effects having said power can do to a person whose heart was once as pure as can be.
As Irene’s mission grows more and more desperate, so too does her hope for any sort of positive resolution. It’s only when she links up with one of the killer’s potential victims, a troubled young woman (Stella Marcus) with an anarchic attitude and sticky fingers, that Irene begins to question her addiction to endless instances of half-cooked vengeance. If there are infinite worlds, is she even making a dent in injustice? Is she ultimately just as evil as her daughter’s killer? It’s a lot to consider, and it serves as a strong character arc throughout an often breathlessly intense cat-and-mouse thriller, providing a strong story component to a plot that, given its imaginative conceit, almost writes itself.
McManus and Marcus are excellent together, each serving as a surrogate version of the other’s absent family. Their relationship has all the hallmarks of the miscommunication that occurs between child and parent during the turbulent teenage years — those bumpy times when both parties start to see themselves in one another and begin to recognize their mutual autonomy, for better and for worse. They may clash, but the world (or the multiverse) is a dangerous place to exist in alone. That’s what family is for. Worth noting that the writers/directors/star are siblings in real life.
Dom Toretto would be so happy.
The McManus Brothers make what was likely a small production into a visually engaging film by filling the small scale locations with lived-in details. These give each world a natural feel while also providing visual bookmarks with which the viewers can compare and contrast each universe. It’s this attention to detail which allows an indie film to work with blockbuster ideas.
Directed by Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus
Written by Matthew McManus, Kevin McManus
Starring Michaela McManus, Stella Marcus, Jeremy Holm, Jim Cummings
Not Rated, 107 minutes
