PARALLEL (2020) – Review

A certain odd feeling probably crossed your mind as you’re dashing past a building. You might still experience this occasionally. That is if the building sports a glass front entrance or window. Catching your reflection, you might first think,” Ugh, bad hair day” or “ I’d better just have a salad for lunch.”. But if you’re not in a mad hurry you may wonder if you’ve got an exact twin somewhere. Or taking it further, what if there’s another “me” in an almost identical “now”.  And is this reflection a window into that duplicate world? That’s an idea that’s been explored in many fantasy anthology TV shows, though an even more famous use of that idea was on the original “Star Trek” TV show, you know the one with an evil Spock sporting a sinister goatee. Now that notion is taken up a few notches in the new thriller concerning the dangers of crossing into the dimensions that run PARALLEL to ours.

Of course, this tale begins on familiar “terra firma”. Two plucky twenty-something tech promoters Noel (Martin Wallstrom) and Devin (Ami Ameen) are pitching their “game-changer” app to a big CEO. He likes it but gives them an impossible deadline. Why? The software whiz the duo had hired, has undercut them with his own pitch. And without him, there’s no way to meet that deadline. So naturally, the pair returns to the house they’ve rented with old college pals, gaming geek Josh (Mark O’Brien) and aspiring artist Leena (Georgia King), and proceed to get roaring drunk. When Devin tosses a glass at the laundry room wall, the resulting hole reveals a surprise. There’s a hidden attic. With a weird telescope-like device that peers into every room. In addition to an exit door that leads to the outside of the house (like an old-time coal bin/shoot). While checking out the dusty old furniture, Josh bumps into a long wardrobe mirror. And his hand pushes into its rubbery surface. They all gasp as he puts more of his arm inside it. After pulling it out, Josh backs up and then strolls right into it. His entire body vanishes. When Josh opens his eyes, he’s near the backyard, watching himself and his pals having a BBQ. Josh returns to the attic, thinking he’s been gone for hours. But it was only a few seconds. After some calculations, Noel and Devin enter the mirror in order to finish the app and “crush” that deadline. But that’s only the start. Soon the quartet is jumping back and forth between these alternate worlds (on one, the Mona Lisa has a pageboy hairdo) and reaping the benefits of new inventions and artistic triumphs. But the big profits are soon overshadowed by deadly consequences. Will their magical “portal” cost them their friendships? Or maybe even their very lives…

The quartet of characters at the heart of the story display very different reactions to the discovery of their “realm-hopping” gift and the actors covey these distinct “takes” As Noel, Wallstrom is the “stressed for success” ramrod who will stop at nothing to rise to the top. The greed quickly erodes his morality as he focuses his attention from acquiring riches to rekindling a failed fling with Leena. As the frustrated painter, King portrays her as a woman dealing with an inner battle as she may be the most conflicted of the foursome. She’s ecstatic over being the toast of the art world, but (after a few glasses of bubbly) Leena lashes out at the fawning fans, and at herself for “tracing’ another world’s great talents. But the real moral conscious is probably Ameen’s Devin, who sees the “magic door” as a way to repair his fractured family history, rather than a fast track to big bucks. He’s able to hold on to his notions of right and wrong, but his tendency to “bail” is stopped thanks to his own connection to Leena.  Josh, played by O’Brien as a “no filter” carefree spirit, uses his discovery as means to have lotsa’ naughty fun, particularly with Carmen, his next door “lust object”, which leads to a tragic decision. The film also benefits from strong cameos by David Harewood (TV’s “Supergirl”) as the man from Devin’s past along with film and TV vet Kathleen Quinlan in a terrific prologue sequence that sets it all “in motion”.

Screenwriter Scott Blaszak came up with a delicious “what if” premise, making us question our own behavior if presented with a world-switching opportunity. The set of “rules’ he’s crafted (“Don’t interact with another ‘self’!” “The mirror must be at the correct angle”) help get us into “the game”. Unfortunately the plot gets over-convoluted by the 60-minute mark as the trips and double-twists pile on top of each other, often in introducing some “other dimension” gizmos and gadgets (aplenty) that resemble cobbled together “zap guns” from 1980s New World SF drive-in flicks. Director Isaac Ezban does his best as a cinematic “traffic cop” guiding the different subplots and keeping them from crashing. Plus he wrings some genuine suspense in several scenes (he’s coming up the stairs) and orchestrates one of the most gruesome villain demises I’ve seen in a recent release. Too often he hits us with “off-kilter” camera effects to portray a character’s disorientation, but he gives the film an overall sense of impending doom (accented by the gloomy cold Canadian locales). Not really a strong “A’ feature, but for some engaging “B” movie-style thrills and chills paired with a cool central idea, PARALLEL is a fairly entertaining fantasy on any world.

2.5 Out of 4

PARALLEL opens in select theatres and is available as a video on demand via most streaming apps and platforms beginning Friday December 11th, 2020