A couple’s six-year relationship is experienced through parallel universes.
Justin Long and Emmy Rossum! And if that alone doesn’t sound appealing enough (which it should, by the way), know that Sam Esmail pens the script and sits in the director’s chair. Yes, the talent behind Mr. Robot (2015), who is also Rossum’s husband in real life. Oh, and Rossum and Long are also the producers, but enough of that.
Comet is not an easy film to make or make sense of. While science is referenced numerous times, art is brought up a lot, and philosophy takes over every parallel universe, but none of it really matters individually as much as it matters collectively. To the point that they matter so much that they become incomprehensible to the human brain, and, alas, love is what matters the most, even if we can’t comprehend that either. Does love mean happiness, sadness, personal completion, or fulfilment? Something else? Does it mean some or all of that to us? Or to some of us? If not all, what does it mean to the rest? Furthermore, why can we never fully express ourselves until it is too late? And when that “late” comes, all the should-haves, the could-haves, the would-haves immensely flood our reason and intricately overwhelm our emotions, feeling like no matter how many lives we had, like a Nietzschean theory, we would always doom it, experiencing all universes colliding, crashing on us.
Dell and Kimberly seem inundated with such questions, and it seems like no matter how many parallel universes they experience, there will never be an “ideal.” The signs that they desperately try to make sense of are personal interpretations of a world that will never come to be, longing for the little things from other worlds that they think, if they combined, they would create the perfect scenario in which their relationship would be what they individually want it to be.
Having said all that, there is no reason to discuss match-cuts between universes, thorough mise-en-scène, amazing acting, and further elaborative filmmaking techniques. Just know that it is a beautiful film based on a beautiful script with numerous funny and dramatic lines, performed beautifully by a beautiful on-screen couple.
As I’ve said before, exploring the human mind through voiceovers, monologues, dialogues, and generally the provocative inner conflict belongs to a series of films I’m currently revisiting and reviewing. I believe that has gone largely under the radar. Comet is definitely part of that series that adds to Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), Ruby Sparks (2012), and The Rules of Attraction (2002). More to follow!
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So like a proper mind warping film. Maybe one day but that day could be a long way off.