11 Dec Parallel Review

PARALLEL

dir. Isaac Ezban, starring Aml Ameen, Martin Wallström, Georgia King, Mark O’Brien

A group of friends stumble upon a mirror that serves as a portal to a “multiverse”, but soon discover that importing knowledge from the other side in order to better their lives brings increasingly dangerous consequences.

The movie is a roller coaster of frustration and enjoyment. There’s elements I really dug and thought were clever, and there’s times where I rolled my eyes and checked my phone. Listen, the idea of finding a mirror that’s essentially portal to multiple versions of Earth is nothing new; it’s what you do with the mirror that’s inventive. In this instance, what this group of four 20-somethings decide to do with the mirror is fairly one dimensional. This follows a lot of familiar beats: the technology is misused and abused, of the group, one uses it for ridiculous profit and gain, the friendship is soured and everything goes completely off the rails. While that’s what I was expecting to see, it’s the choices the characters make that I was disappointed in. I didn’t expect them to go straight to the depths of depravity that they did. Still, there are some surprises in here that had me sit up in my chair a little and pay more attention. There’s a particularly chilling decision that redirects the film to a different path that I didn’t see coming and greatly enjoyed. The fact that I openly said “oh that’s [redacted] up!” really says something. This is one of those mediocre movies with a few spots of brilliance that I wish could’ve been more. To that end, I think the directing job done by Isaac Ezban was ok. There were a few weird flourishes I thought were a bit unnecessary to what was happening in the scene; I felt like there were times he was just trying to show off just to show off, which came off as a bit cheesy at times. Still, for the most part, the directing is competent, the fight scenes are well staged and well shot, the movie overall is edited wonderfully it really flows pretty seamlessly from scene to scene. The ending is a bit hokey, had it ended a handful of minutes earlier, it would’ve gone out on a better note than it does. There’s some fine acting, no A listers in this film and that’s quite alright, it gives others a chance to shine a little bit. They all do a pretty good job here, there’s no obviously weak link amongst the core cast, Aml Ameen and Mark O’Brien have the most work to do for different reasons: Ameen’s character Devin is the moral center of the movie, the gateway for the audience into wanting to do something more noble than just profit and gain of the awesome technology they have. He has the most interesting story and I really enjoyed how Ameen played him. We get plenty Devin in the movie but I still wish there was more. Mark O’Brien’s Josh has a bit of a different role to play as something of an outsider looking into the whole situation after certain events transpire. Both play their parts quite well.

Overall, at the heart of this movie is the question “what would you do if given unexplainable superior technology?” Unfortunately for 3/4 of this cast, it’s nothing good and therein lies your conflict. This is a movie you can zoom with your friends, have a few drinks, and enjoy. It’s not trying to be hard sci-fi, it’s not trying to be high art, but it’s also not overtly schlocky. It’s somewhere in that lost era of the low to mid budget sci-fi. There’s no million dollar visual effects (the story doesn’t need it), and it’s not Primer which looks like it was shot for pocket change. It has its ups, it has its downs, it’s got a few sneaky surprises in there that’ll manage to keep you engaged and get you to the next scene but I think in the end if you watch it you’ll be glad you did. Parallel will be available in select theaters and on demand December 11th.

Review by Darryl Mansel