Parallel

Vertical Entertainment | Release Date: December 11, 2020

6.0	USER SCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Ratings

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rmurray847Aug 10, 2023

I am a sucker for time travel / parallel universe kinds of films. Even though they tend to fall apart logically, I always enjoy seeing how the writer and filmmakers explore the topic. So many possibilities, creatively.

PARALLEL follows threeI am a sucker for time travel / parallel universe kinds of films. Even though they tend to fall apart logically, I always enjoy seeing how the writer and filmmakers explore the topic. So many possibilities, creatively.

PARALLEL follows three friends / roommates who stumble across a hidden room in their rambling old house. And within that hidden room is a mirror that has the ability to send someone to another dimension simply by stepping into it. They can't pick which alternative universe. And each one is just a small variation on ours. But they quickly figure out how to exploit all this for financial gain. And for awhile, it's fun to watch these three characters explore these strange new worlds (including avoiding running into their alternative selves).

Eventually, though, they begin to get a bit too comfortable in these other universes, which start to feel less real and more like exploitation opportunities. Some of the friends lose any empathy for the inhabitants of these worlds, and things go from "enhancing" the pocket-book to high stakes pranks and revenge, and eventually worse. As they begin to take divergent paths, ethical quandaries begin to pile up and, of course, bad feelings and consequences spill into our world. It won't be a spoiler to tell you that the old "friendships are strained" cliche only touches the tip of the iceberg here.

The film has a low budget, and is considerably constrained to this one house and one neighborhood. We hear about some exploits but never see them. Yet we've got generally solid acting here and writing that is at least trying not to insult our intelligence. Towards the end events start moving faster than perhaps we can keep up with and motivations become a bit muddied. And it ends up feeling like a "super special episode of The Twilight Zone" where it all becomes about the twists and less about logical character actions. But I have to say that I was entertained throughout, enjoyed much of the plot, and appreciated that even though there was little money to spend, acting, writing, directing, editing, sound and cinematography were all more than competently done and it "feels" less low-budget than it probably was. I can recommend this for a rainy night at home, when a bit of parallel universe travelling seems like just the thing!… Expand

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