Synopsis
When New Orleans paramedics and longtime best friends Steve and Dennis are called to a series of bizarre and gruesome accidents, they chalk it up to a mysterious new drug found at the scene. But after Dennis’ oldest daughter disappears, Steve stumbles upon a terrifying truth about the supposed psychedelic that will challenge everything he knows about reality — and the flow of time itself.
Review
In a cinema-going landscape dominated by Endgame‘s, remakes and sequels it seems like original ideas have lost their place. Overtly complex narratives around science fiction concepts are often relegated to festivals and streaming that they often struggle to find an audience and the recognition they deserve.
Synchronic, announced in 2018 and premiered at TIFF in 2019, is one such film losing out on the big screen treatment thanks to the current state of the global pandemic. So it seems somewhat fitting that the film takes a somewhat sobering look at one man’s lack of human connections.
Directed by Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead – they of Resolution and Spring fame – the film centres on two New Orleans paramedics (Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan). They form an off-beat buddy movie heart to what is arguably a psychedelic trip across time travel. The irregular narrative structure which Benson and Moorhead create is easily digestible when there are two such identifiable and likeable characters at its core.
Mackie gives what is undoubtedly the performance of his career. In the opening act Synchronic is more of a drug-fuelled horror. But around that there is plenty of scope for Mackie to show a much broader emotional range than his costumed superhero role for a certain Mouse themed company. The directing duos approach to expressing emotion complements Mackie’s detached approach to playing Steve. His disconnection from all but Dennis (Dornan) allows for plenty of emotional exposition as the two navigate their way through very separate lives. Seeing different sides of his personality was an eye-opener for me and will hopefully open doors for Mackie in his future career.
Dornan complements Mackie as the seemingly connected counter-point. He has a wife, a daughter and his connections to the wider world are much more tangible. Dornan plays Dennis with much more warmth and emotion also. Where Steve is prone to emotional outbursts, Dennis is more measured in his approach to life… mostly.
The real world approach to character only serves to amplify the Nolan-esque, mind-bending plotting. Benson and Moorhead use a new designer drug to underpin the science fiction elements of the story. Users of the drug are sent backward in time for a strongly defined seven minutes in the past. Their arrival scenario being seemingly dependent on where they are when the drug takes effect.
The concept is brilliant in its simplicity. There’s nothing new about a plot around a designer drug. Neither is time travel a new concept. But merging the two and placing a strict system of rules helps refresh both ideas into something wholly unique.
As an audience we’re taken rather slavishly through the rules by Steve as he experiments with the drug. We experience different instances of time travel through his attempts to discover where Dennis’ missing daughter (Ally Ioannides) ended up during her own Synchronic experience. Whilst his videotaped experiments do provide the perfect method to fully explain the concept to the audience, I feel the kind of audience who will be attracted to Synchronic don’t necessarily need that level of detail handed to them.
Through its second act Synchronic does get a little bogged down in exposition and explanation. Though it doesn’t drive the film off the rails it does push on the breaks and make the 96 minute runtime feel a little overblown.
The film coalesces in its closing moments, circling back to the characters at its core. A very human finale serves as a stark reminder that no matter what the circumstance or the stakes, these films are always about the human condition. Both Steve and Dennis were jealous of each others lives but ultimately its the impact they have on each other which is the crucial factor.
Verdict
Synchronic is as unique in its approach to sci-fi as it is in its approach to character. Focussed and unpredictable, it one of the genre’s most defining films of the last decade.
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