Coherence : hint for beginning (major spoilers)

Fyi: just saw this in LA with an intro from the director who said it was "a puzzle" and there were clues right at the,beginning - here are two:

The Laurie that arrives is the 'wrong' Laurie - she doesnt recognize Mike and she doesnt know she teaches yoga (not sure about Amir though)

The house isnt the 'first' house - other houses already have the box and the pictures

Overall it was a clever film and well-acted but i think Time Crimes and Primer were better - the thing with the dice and numbers was a nice touch but if someone can explain the Ketamine that would be nice

I don't understand how Laurie wouldn't have recognised Mike or known that she taught Yoga since the dis-coherence only started from that night? Did the director explain?

I think since the "wrong" Laurie that shows up is a different Laurie that made different choices in her life and therefore never taught yoga or met Mike?

Yo, she-bitch! Let's go!

Not just that the Laurie we see in the beginning doesn't teach Yoga in her timeline, but in her timeline, Mike wasn't on the show Roswell.

(Joke) In her timeline, Mike was on Buffy. :)

Ah wow yeah that makes senseand when he said "I was a lead on a show for a while" I totally screamed buffy! But yeah, that is really interesting. Very well done script and story.

No the time alternate timelines started from the moment the comet came, up until the comet came it was only the 1 version of those characters. Then when the comet came thats when all the different possible realities started from that point.

It's hard to explain. I think the can and poison in the box thing explains it if you try to apply it to the group.

I can't explain what the OP was talking about since i don't remember but this is how im 99% sure it worked. Otherwise what are the chances that all the other houses just happened to have the same people in if their timelines were split from 20+ years ago? They wouldn't have planned something on that same night by chance, they might not have even known each other.

The OP is right, I remember now. I watched it late, late last night (talk about a night full of interesting dreams after that flick).

(I watched it after Triangle because I forgot that I all ready seen Triangle before so therefore was not fulfilled with watching a movie I seen before and forgot about.)

Remember when Emily is in the car in the beginning and her phone suddenly cracks in her hand. This is before she arrives at the party. So now, I'm thinking that the comet events have all ready started.

Emily arrives at the party talking about her cracked phone. Now did she arrive at the party where everyone's phones were cracked?

The cracked stuff was significant. I can't wait to rewatch because with the low budget, I'm mow realizing that were no filler incidences or dialog.

The decoherence may have started started from the moment her phone screen broke. Maybe even earlier.

I agree. It started when she lost contact with Kevin on the phone, and the phone then cracked. That's when she went to a different universe/reality.

She looks a little lost from the start of the party as well. Only just realized why.

I hope the director said this after the movie. Before hand would have really hurt the experience.

No, that's incorrect. You guys have it wrong.

All of the characters have the same "past" (events prior to the space-time anomaly).

It's not that this Laurie did x, y, z in her past, and this Laurie did another.

Pay attention to the dialogue. It even says that the character who cheated on his wife would have done so in every possible universe, as that was a PAST event.

The only thing differentiating the Laurie's are the choices that they made WITHIN the space-time anomaly.

Not necessarily. I think they have it right.
The space-time anomaly only made their leaking into their alternate realities and being aware of them possible.
The other alternate realities exist because of different choices made. That's supposedly why they exist at all. Different turns in life create their own reality.
Each one being exactly the same would make no sense. Even their small choices are different:a ping pong paddle versus a stapler.

Mike wonders if they might be the "dark versions" of themselves that they were worried about..Em peeks into windows as all versions handle it all a bit differently.

Again, that's incorrect. The movie is based on the Schrdinger's cat experiment. The cat only "splits" into two quantum states once it is in the box. In our case, the universe allows for infinite simultaneous states when the characters are "place in the box" when the comet flies overhead.

The idea is that (loosely speaking, I'm not being very rigorous here) for any decision that a character could make, the universe splits into infinite quantum states, each based on a different possible outcome, until it is determined which decision was made.

For instance, if I hold an object in my hand, I can place it on the table in front of me, I can throw it, I can eat it, I can do infinitely many things with a given object in my hand. If you are familiar with advanced mathematics, I'd argue that there are uncountably infinite outcomes for any event.

So within the space-time anomaly, anytime a character makes a decision, there would be a different version of that character in a different house who chose another decision. In this house Laurie places down her fork, in this house Laurie raises it up 1 inch, in this house Laurie raises it to her mouth, and so on and so forth.

But that is all besides the point. The movie explicitly states that the past is the same for everyone when the one character announces that he would have cheated on his wife regardless of which "him" is in the room. That's the movie telling you that, not me.

So in conclusion, only choices made within the space-time anomaly can have a different outcome, and there's a house for every one of those outcomes!

---

In our case, the universe allows for infinite simultaneous states when the characters are "place in the box" when the comet flies overhead.

---

That's incorrect, the comet only allows to jump from one universe to the other.

That's still regardless of the point. A character in the movie (the writer of the movie himself) tells you that he has the same past of any other versions of him lurking out there.

And think about it logically. If in all of these houses, each of the characters had different pasts, then they would NOT be dressed the exact same and have the exact same haircuts.

I agree on your analysis.

I lol'd when my friend said that he'd like to watch the reality where they all got frisky and horny, and decided to have an orgy.

So wouldnt the biggest plot hole be that why, in every reality, are they together at this party? The Roswell thing does not make sense at all.

If Mike was NOT in Roswell, chances are those years of his life would have changed him completely, and he would not have ended up with the same people on that same night at a dinner party. I cant believe that Mike being in Roswell and Mike not being in Roswell would both lead to Mike being at that party.

The same can be said with anything, if the universes started dividing before this party, there would not be this many versions of what is pretty much the same "party" because everyone would be different.

At first, I thought this was a huge plot hole as well. But think about it - there may be countless parallel universes where there IS NO dinner party at all!

We only get to see a handful of the parallel universes, in each one of those the characters are roughly the same (for example they attend the same dinner party, they wear the same (?) clothes, etc.) but they also differ slightly (they're (not) yoga teachers, they're (not) on the TV show Roswell, etc).

But there may also be billions of universes out there where they DO attend the same dinner party, but wear different clothes, we just don't get to see all of them in the movie. Which means that there could still be (and most probably are) universes where the dinner party is never held, not all of them attend, etc. etc. We just don't know anything about those, because the movie only deals with the universes where the dinner party exists




This message was brought to you by the numbers 1 and 0.

---

At first, I thought this was a huge plot hole as well. But think about it - there may be countless parallel universes where there IS NO dinner party at all!

We only get to see a handful of the parallel universes, in each one of those the characters are roughly the same (for example they attend the same dinner party, they wear the same (?) clothes, etc.) but they also differ slightly (they're (not) yoga teachers, they're (not) on the TV show Roswell, etc).

But there may also be billions of universes out there where they DO attend the same dinner party, but wear different clothes, we just don't get to see all of them in the movie. Which means that there could still be (and most probably are) universes where the dinner party is never held, not all of them attend, etc. etc. We just don't know anything about those, because the movie only deals with the universes where the dinner party exists

---

Exactly. Those are the realities that are closest to the one that Emily comes from, so they would be the ones that it would be easiest for her to assimilate into at the end. If they had started to check in on universes where the party didn't happen, it would risk deteriorating into a farce - and this movie teeters on that brink a bit already. Luckily, it manages to stay balanced.

Quidquid Latinae dictum sit, altum viditur.

Good point, this really does make it all a lot more interesting!

We don't know they dress the same or have the same haircuts. We only see a couple versions. Other versions could be completely different.




Have you read THE BOOK OF LIES? The best horror anthology webcomic of 2013! Come read "FAIREST" a twisted retelling of a classic tale for FREE! > http://bookofliescomic.webcomic.ws/comics/79

I don't think that's the case. All the characters look exactly the same as their alternate selves. There's no randomness to their fashion choices. This implies that the single reality we see at the beginning of the film only starts to split at some time around that evening when they come in close proximity to the comet. They didn't jump from one universe to other entirely new universes, but copies of their original universe. And therefore OP is wrong about his supposed hint.

I agree with this and it's what I was trying to drill home. The split happened that night. The characters all had a already determined past.

Hmmm but obviously the Roswell thing was the first sign something was amiss. I presume as she had arrived later she may well have crossed from another universe, but given that we know that the split did not occur until that night it doesn't follow that she did not know who he was regardless of wherever she had come from. I think it may well be a plot hole unless we all missed something.

---

But that is all besides the point. The movie explicitly states that the past is the same for everyone when the one character announces that he would have cheated on his wife regardless of which "him" is in the room. That's the movie telling you that, not me.

---

No. That's a half drunk actor in the movie telling you. He's not a physicist. If it had been in the book, it would still be only theoretical but it could be considered "canon", maybe, as to the theory the movie is built on. But it's not in the book. It's Mike, who is an actor and recognizes this is "not his field" who says something as he understands it.

However, the movie disagrees with him and proves it right away since that Hugh didn't know Mike had slept with his wife. And Mike says he told him. So their pasts are already different prior to the dinner.
In fact, when Emily tells Kevin about the ring he won for her at the fair, he's like "nice" but he doesn't react the way the other Kevins did when she tells them that. So that event might also have been different for them.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco

---

No. That's a half drunk actor in the movie telling you. He's not a physicist. If it had been in the book, it would still be only theoretical but it could be considered "canon", maybe, as to the theory the movie is built on. But it's not in the book. It's Mike, who is an actor and recognizes this is "not his field" who says something as he understands it.

---

Sorry, Ithilfaen I'm afraid you're incorrect. Screenwriters / filmmakers often choose characters to share expository information with the audience at a given moment. That's what "Mike, the drunken actor" was doing; when he explained that he had sex with Beth in every timeline, he was clearly doing the filmmaker's bidding and telling us, in no uncertain terms, how the filmmaker wanted us, the audience, the analyze and interpret the entire concept.

Also

---

However, the movie disagrees with him and proves it right away since that Hugh didn't know Mike had slept with his wife. And Mike says he told him. So their pasts are already different prior to the dinner.

---

You misheard this. Mike never said he told Hugh. BETH says she THOUGHT Mike had, which is why she never brought it up. Mike clearly tells us that he DIDN'T tell Hugh when another character asks Mike "Wait, you never told him???" to which Mike replies, "Hey, it's been on my to-do list."

---

Sorry, Ithilfaen I'm afraid you're incorrect. Screenwriters / filmmakers often choose characters to share expository information with the audience at a given moment. That's what "Mike, the drunken actor" was doing; when he explained that he had sex with Beth in every timeline, he was clearly doing the filmmaker's bidding and telling us, in no uncertain terms, how the filmmaker wanted us, the audience, the analyze and interpret the entire concept.

---

I'm sorry, but you have no proof whatsoever that this was a case of expository information. Unless you have seen the author himself stating that, or had access to some sort of evidence, there's no way for you to be so sure about it. With what you provided so far, I can only assume that this is nothing more than your personal interpretation.

The cat experiment clearly defines the perameters of this movie. That was basically explaining their situation. They were the cat in the box. Unobserved, all possibilities existed in that box much like all possibilities were playing out that night. The key is that it was an isolated box. This wasn't meant as an intersection of all their lives. The cat is just a cat with one life until it enters the box, then the can can technically be dead and alive.

This basically explains the movie. They are the cat stuck in the box of infinite possibilities. The question is, did she manage to leave the box or is she still stuck in it?

Mike is just making that statement to get the husband's goat so to speak. He's drunk, he's scared (because of the situation), and he's making a speculation that probably in all universes his doppleganger had sex with Beth. But he does not know that at all. It's just to irritate Hugh and to mouth off.

The universes were always split, based on the millions of decisions each person makes each day. In one universe in the past Em may have been institutionalized for mental health reasons and she was not at the party at one of the houses - this did not happen the night of the comet; it probably happened years before that she had some kind of mental breakdown.

The comet opened the door so the multi-universes could intersect (integrate/cohere). The comet did not split one universe into multiple universes.

And was there not a reality of the drunk guy not being a drunk and fearful of perhaps an alternate version of his once violent drunk self that would come over and kill him or them?

I was thinking this while watching, that by stating that the split only occurred that night that really the film is not using the multiverse stuff correctly. Is it just that the characters misunderstand the situation and their exposition should be taken with a grain of salt? Is the real evidence of what is happening the Roswell/Yoga debacle?

"To err is humansoerrrr" - Gary King

---

Again, that's incorrect. The movie is based on the Schrdinger's cat experiment.

---

You're putting too much emphasis on the Schrodinger's box. The "many worlds" theory is what the movie was actually focusing on, but would have been too complex to quickly explain to the audience.

It is clear that the comet wasn't a stand in for Schrodinger's box. The comet just allowed the crossing over to other instances the "many worlds" created in the past.

The reality that Emily crossed over to last is evidence of that as that reality's Emily had made much better choices and had a much better life.

---

Not necessarily. I think they have it right.
The space-time anomaly only made their leaking into their alternate realities and being aware of them possible.
The other alternate realities exist because of different choices made. That's supposedly why they exist at all. Different turns in life create their own reality.
Each one being exactly the same would make no sense. Even their small choices are different:a ping pong paddle versus a stapler.

---

Sorry, but this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I read it several times, and still can't make any sense of it. It's almost as if you aren't even sure which side you are on, as you're all over the place. The other poster countering your argument makes sense and is more logically aligned with the concepts going on in the movie.
Bottom line: the split only happened during the passing of the comet. Everything before that moment was in the same space-timeline. The small differing choices of ping pong paddle vs. stapler happened after the comet incident.

There are two sides of this story, and both are true:

On one side we have:
*Laurie acts like she doesn't know mike
*Laurie acts like she doesn't have the yoga job
*Mike has the a role in roswell (while in the viewer's universe this is not true)

On the other side we have:
*Mike concludes that he has had sex with Beth in every universe (but he seems to say this out of drunken spite, to antagonize Hugh)
*The characters don't seem to have any other (obvious) differences, like clothing or hairstyles

In a movie, everything extra information you get is intended. So the weirdness about Laurie/Mike is definitely intended, and it seems too specific to be just there to set a "mood".

I don't know what to make of this, because it doesn't seem to fit the story overall, but it does look like they went out of their way to at least suggest there might be differences in the history too. The reason that clothing and hairstyles are the same might just be budget

---

So the weirdness about Laurie/Mike is definitely intended, and it seems too specific to be just there to set a "mood".

---

I can kind of see your point here, but still not totally convinced that that means there were crossings of the different "realities" before the passing of the comet. Otherwise, that would mean that is happening all the time, which diminishes the whole premise to begin with.

---

The reason that clothing and hairstyles are the same might just be budget

---

Clothing and hairstyles are not much of a budget breaker - especially for a low budget/indie film the actors could even provide their own clothing if needed, and it doesn't take much to change one's hairstyle without breaking the bank. So to suggest that the reason their clothing and hairstyles were identical is because production was too cheap to change them is nonsensical and trivializing. There was a specific reason and purposefulness for why they all looked the same as their counterparts.

I think the argument is valid.

The wormhole event started long before dark. The film shows it when Emily loses contact with her boyfriend on the phone and it cracks. So people were already passing through that "dark" space even though they couldn't see it.

We don't know really know if the event ended when the film ends or if Emily is still stuck in her "box".

---

The wormhole event started long before dark. The film shows it when Emily loses contact with her boyfriend on the phone and it cracks. So people were already passing through that "dark" space even though they couldn't see it.

---

hmmm, that is a good point

---

I think the argument is valid.

The wormhole event started long before dark. The film shows it when Emily loses contact with her boyfriend on the phone and it cracks. So people were already passing through that "dark" space even though they couldn't see it.

We don't know really know if the event ended when the film ends or if Emily is still stuck in her "box".

---

This is indeed a valid point.

But that raises another possibility that the Em we see since the beginning throughout the movie could also be another version of self? Besides Amir & Laurie BOTH arrive after everyone else's been gathered at the house, how can we say that it was just Laurie who passed through the dark zone before arriving at the house, an not Amir as well? Theoretically speaking, both of them should've been from the parallel universe then,right?

The movie just becomes way too random, if we consider this probability.

If you pay close attention to the end, Em in the last house became the prima ballerina. One of the other guests goes on to ask her who will take her place when she goes to Vietnam with Kevin, which means that even before the "event" she chose a different path.

>Pay attention to the dialogue.


I would advise you to do the same. The Universes are separate and have differences which existed before the Comet's effect. The conclusions that the characters come to about the split happening and causing the different timelines can be thought of as an unreliable narrator.


The evidence for this is that the main Laurie's character missed out her chance to be the Prima Ballerina for the SF Ballet Troop because she took to long to decide on the understudy role, and Kathryn Maris became the Understudy, who would eventually become the lead after the famous Russian ballerina quit.


In the ending timeline the other Laurie makes a comment "maybe I'll donate to the SF Ballet" and other Lee asks jokingly, "While you're in Vietnam is Kathryn Maris going to understudy your life for you now?". This implies that in the ending timeline Laurie became the Prima Ballerina in the SF Troop and Kathryn Maris is her understudy.

Laurie wasn't a dancer.

---

The evidence for this is that the main Laurie's character missed out her chance to be the Prima Ballerina for the SF Ballet Troop because she took to long to decide on the understudy role, and Kathryn Maris became the Understudy, who would eventually become the lead after the famous Russian ballerina quit.


In the ending timeline the other Laurie makes a comment "maybe I'll donate to the SF Ballet" and other Lee asks jokingly, "While you're in Vietnam is Kathryn Maris going to understudy your life for you now?". This implies that in the ending timeline Laurie became the Prima Ballerina in the SF Troop and Kathryn Maris is her understudy.

---

this is an old post, but

---

the character who cheated on his wife would have done so in every possible universe, as that was a PAST event

---

in the first(?) universe, it is said that mike had told hugh about it a long time ago and they were over it
in the "coaster" universe, it is said that mike never told hugh that he slept with his wife
everyone else knew that mike slept with hugh's wife because they came from universes where mike had told hugh about it and worked it over
only this hugh didn't know, because he came from a universe where mike didn't tell him

so past events ARE different
also a much more satisfying explanation to why he says roswell and not buffy

Also, just from a storytelling perspective, it doesn't really make sense or make for a better film to think that there's already "alternates" appearing from the very first scenes. If that were the case, all of the intrigue of the boxes and the random objects isn't so intriguing anymore, because they don't matter anyway. It just sort of ruins the movie to think anything besides the dis-coherence started when the power went out (roughly).

I think the weirdness at the beginning where Laurie doesn't recognize Mike and then someone else misremembers what Laurie does/did for a living is just to set a certain mood.

At the beginning of the movie, before the comet, alternative timelines/dimensions/universes absolutely exist-they just don't intersect, so we're only seeing one "regular" timeline/dimension at that point, which is all anyone typically sees, so it doesn't really matter that an infinite number of universes exist generally.

The unique comet situation is what allows the different universes that exist to interact with each other, and cause the problems/weirdness here.

The guy saying he would cheat on his wife in any timeline would be IMPOSSIBLE for him to know for sure, even if it turns out to be truehe is just saying that in his drunken and/or spiteful/antagonistic state, he doesn't have actual knowledge of thisno one does of this sort of thing, it's really just an educated guess.

This is why the character said he used to be on Roswell (something that happened before the comet came) (and incorrect in the "right" timeline), and to help show this, the character who watched Roswell does not recognize him at all, even though his hair was the same on the show and he wasn't just a guest star, etc. Another example is the prior dancing stuff, and a few other past things that were discussed, like the ring and how it came about and how important it was to the character.

The number of universes/realities/timelines is INFINITEthis movie only showed a few, and they were likely all similar due to a small movie budget combined with the fact that it makes it more mysterious/scary/hard to tell which universe a character is in in any given scene, whether its the "right" one or a "wrong" one.

Anyway, If you pay attention, they did NOT have all the exact same outfits or hairstyles in each reality. They just showed a few very similar realities for the purposes of this movie, instead of say, the reality where every person has purple skin or red eyes.

You are all drunk, acting crazy and turning on one another.

Screw this, I'm going to another house where people may be agreeable to one another.

Yes, yes, yes. This exactly. Well said.

I disagree. It seems that the Laurie we meet in the beginning was different from the other one Mike knew, who taught "Spanish yoga." Even Beth kept giving her the side-eye each time this Laurie spoke, as if she couldn't believe that she was working with "at risk youth" now vs. whatever she did when she used to date Kevin. If you watch Beth and Laurie throughout, you will notice more weird moments with them, before the whole seduction scene.