Omni Loop

Greetings again from the darkness. Writer-director Bernardo Britto has delivered a modern-day cinematic rarity: a Science Fiction film without overblown special effects. Time travel is a vital part of the story, but at its core, this is a film about human emotions, and it has quite a message for viewers.

Mary-Louise Parker ("Weeds") stars as Zoya Lowe, a quantum physicist and our story's time traveler. Only this isn't the kind of time traveler you are thinking of. Zoya neither travels back to medieval times nor forward to some future high-tech civilization. See, the magic pills she found as a kid only take her back 5 days. This is less THE TIME MACHINE (1969) and more GROUNDHOG DAY (1993) ... without the laughs or Ned Ryerson.

Zoya has been diagnosed with 'a black hole growing in her chest.' Now, I'm not sure if that diagnosis is an actual medical affliction or rather a metaphor, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is that Zoya has been given a week to live, which means with those pills, she's forced to re-do every day since her diagnosis in hopes of discovering what the pills are and how they work. To do this, she collaborates with Paula (Ayo Edebiri, "The Bear"), a community college science student with access to the campus lab. For some reason, this particular lab hosts an extreme sci-fi secret that Zoya and Paula believe can help solve the mystery.

Part of the gag here is that Zoya must re-live the terminal diagnosis, blow out the candles on her early birthday cake, and then convince Paula to assist over and over again. As Zoya goes through her daily re-dos, the supporting cast around her consists of Carlos Jacott as her husband, Hannah Pearl Utt as her daughter, Eddie Cahill as a brilliant scientist, Fern Katz as her assisted-living mom, and Harris Yulin as her old college professor. We may overdose on the electronic music that plays through most of the movie, but there is a terrific message here - being there for others is so important, and we should focus on what really matters in this all-too-short life.

In theaters and on Digital beginning September 20, 2024.

In Miami, the physicist Zoya Lowe (Mary-Louise Parker) is terminal with a black hole on her chest. She has only one-week life and her husband Donald (Carlos Jacott), her daughter Jayne (Hannah Pearl Utt) and Jayne's fiancée Morris (Chris Witaske) bring her home to spend her last days comfortably with her family. However, when Zoya bleeds indicating that she will die, she goes to the bathroom and swallows one mysterious pill that she found when she was twelve and returns five days back in her life. Now Zoya wants to research how she could return further and make others choices in life. When she meets the graduation student Paula (Ayo Edebiri), she teams up with her to analyze the pill for several five days but goes nowhere. But when she goes to Princeton to meet her former brilliant university mate Mark (Eddie Cahill) and his son later, she reflects on her life and concludes she has made her best alternative.

"Omni Loop" (2024) is a melancholic sci-fi, developed in slow pace and very dramatic. Mary-Louise Parker is a great actress, but it is sad to see her injected with Botox in her face the way she is. The plot is good, and Zoya Lowe sees that an alternate life should not be what she is looking for. Another excellent point is the soundtrack by the Brazilian Taiguara singing "Viagem", written and composed by him. Taiguara was born in Montevideo, Uruguay during a tour of his parents but grew up in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and was exiled in London, Spain, Paris and Afrikan countries during the Brazilian military dictatorship. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available.

First off, let me give an honest up front detail about my review process: This film is really a 7.5 to me, but i rounded up instead of down like i usually do, because i feel this movie is trapped between a rock and a hard place.

This is NOT an action, or adventure film, at all, like most big Sci-fi. Kinda barely even a sci-fi film, I prefer to call it Speculative Fiction, but most of all its a drama, while also not being exactly what that implies. This movie isn't a "Family drama" but it does focus in on familial bonds, its definitely not a comedy, but it stars relatable comic actors who inject a bit of levity into the situations. Its not any of those genres But it has elements of them all. (except, to be clear, action and adventure).

To me this belongs in a genre I really love that I'm calling "Meta-Modern Speculative Fiction", and the easiest comparison is basically ALL the films of Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche NY, Being John Malkovich), but others that I've loved are: Visioneers, Donnie Darko, Southland Tales, Sorry to Bother You, The Lobster, Poor Things, Get Out, Nope and the Tv Shows Legion, The Last Man on Earth, Maniac, I am a Virgo, and Devs. I could list a ton more but im getting away from the point.

All this type of media tends to take a Speculative fiction concept, usually with some surreal mystery/thriller element, and apply those to a character drama, with a philosophical and/or psychosocial tone. They tend to defy genre convention by combining Elements of those genres and others, and an often wildly oscillating emotional undertone, conjuring disparate negative and positive associations along the way.

In this case its mostly a time travel character drama, a little mystery thriller, and a peppering of other momentary vibes. It obviously shares a lot of tropes with Groundhog day but it tackles those in a totally different way that fans of Time Travel narratives will appreciate because it compresses a lot of the classic moments with clever editing techniques that fans of film editing will also love.

Give it a watch if that sounds good, and if you already but you were expecting a different movie, please don't rate it poorly because it didn't match expectation, a lot of people like me want to see movies like this, and when the weirder movies tend to get downvoted due to being misunderstood it just gets tougher to find and support films like this.

Generally a fan of low budget indie high concept sci-fi movies especially ones that are interested in time travel. Going by the casting of Ayo (one of the most employed movie actors in the industry right now) it was understood that this would lean more towards the comedic aspect rather than something like Coherence or Time Crimes that investigates the scifi premise indepth.

This movie however fails to be a good ide driven scifi movie and as a comedy, even with a runtime of 1hr and 50 mins this feel thrice as long especially with the 2nd half of the film dragging excessively.

Just straight up avoid it.

I am such a sucker for a good sci-fi movie especially when it involves time travel. The setup and conundrum you get within the first 10 minutes. You only have to listen to the doctor giving Zoya her prognosis to understand that we are going to be stretching reality a little bit so enjoy the ride. The use of the Groundhog Day time travel concept is not original. The use of it to save a life is not original. The message that it presents about parenthood and the choices one makes along the road of life however are wholly its own. Beautiful storytelling and the characters are well rounded and multi dimensional. As a fan of fantasy storytelling mixed with sci-fi tropes I loved it and recommend it wholeheartedly.