Synchronic (2019)

directed by Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead

USA

98 minutes

4 stars out of 5

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It's been a long, long, long, long, long time coming for this one. I'm not sure exactly what the delays were, but it was held back quite a while, with only a couple of showings at festivals and the like. Benson & Moorhead are basically without fault as far as their directorial record goes, but don't base your assumptions about Synchronic off of the themes of the previous films, because this has some key differences that give it a whole different flavor.

The way I saw it, Synchronic has two distinct halves, or I guess I should say "two distinct sections", since I wasn't paying attention to notice if the changes occurred at the literal midpoint or not. The beginning of the film is more akin to a horror movie with its deep sense of building dread, starting with a semi-cold open right after the production credits that made me realize, oh yeah, this is gonna be A Movie for me. This part of the film feels the most like Resolution and The Endless. It's unnerving; the camera swings from side to side in a lazy, nauseating pendulum as we're shown things that shouldn't be happening, deaths that shouldn't be possible. And there's a deeply personal dread in this as well, which I have to mention because it's done so much better than most character backstories typically are in a film like this where the personal element is not necessarily the largest part, but is still important. I found myself feeling as anxious about the individual fate of the two main characters- their family issues, their medical problems- as I was about the premise the film was introducing.

After the actual plot kicks in, a lot of that dread dissipates. Once it's established what's happening, there is no longer such a feeling of danger, of being exposed, like there was in the first part of the film. After that, it just becomes interesting, with no particular tone or atmosphere. This is the only aspect of Synchronic that didn't immediately click with me: it is far more of a science fiction film than the duo's previous work, and this isn't a bad thing at all, but it took me a moment to get re-acclimated to the new direction of the film once that ominousness and mystery was shed in favor of something that rode on the merits of its own really, really neat idea.

That idea is that there is a pill that makes people time travel. That's it, that's the film. I emphasize the simplicity of this concept because Resolution and The Endless were extremely complex films, Resolution especially- those two requires some serious mental footwork to prise out meaning, they were confusing and had enormous conceptual scope that extended well beyond their simple, low-budget execution. Synchronic is what it is, which is not a downside, because since this is directed and written by who it's directed and written by, you can trust that that idea is going to be explored and executed beyond the surface level. And it happens to be an idea that I genuinely, whole-heartedly believe in, on a personal note- the concept that time is not linear, cannot be viewed as such, is something I think is just... factual, honestly. I don't believe you could pop a pill and go hang out with woolly mammoths, but our way of thinking about the past as behind us and the future ahead (or the reverse, if you conceive of it that way due to your native language) is just false. It all happens at once. And leave it to Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead to take that idea and turn it into something not only interesting but eminently watchable.

Dialogue is not neglected either. There are some deep philosophical discussions between the two leads that are delivered in a setting that feels like they're genuinely just two friends talking about big things. There's moments where any other film could easily have cheapened the vibe with a quick joke, or showed somebody not taking things seriously, but it never stoops down to doing stuff like that. I think a big part of why this is so good is because it's taken so seriously. And this is kind of chancey- you could easily lose a lot of viewers as soon as you show a woolly mammoth, or grubby racists in the vague 19th century, or a prehistoric human, because I think a lot of people are used to seeing those things as wild ideas that belong solely in fantasy. Synchronic takes them and brings them into a more relatable dimension, while never losing a sense of exploration, but also balancing that sense with some dread and uneasiness. These guys keep putting out excellent films, and I hope they continue once the film industry gets back onto its feet.