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Schrodinger's cat

If you believe your head is not screwed on right, this movie may be for you.   No it is not called  'Schrodinger's cat' but is based on the paradox of that name.   Schrodinger was an Austrian who formulated this idea to describe the multiple states in which something can exist.



The Austrian physicist posited that if a cat is enclosed in a box with a substance that might kill the cat then at any given time there are two (or more) states that simultaneously exist with respect to the cat.  It is both Dead and Alive at the same time and the actual outcome is confirmed by an observer who opens the box.


The movie that explores this idea is called 'Coherence'.



It is a sort of low budget, stage play set in a house (of the director) to handle a complex subject in this sci fi thriller.  Director portrays this concept, not unlike duality using a passing comet as the backdrop.  Movie has a cast of completely unfamiliar actors but the acting is very natural and engaging.


A group of friends gathered in a house over dinner find strange incidents happen to them during this passage of the comet.  All their mobile phone screens shatter for no reason.  Then there is a widespread blackout.  The lights go out in the house and one of the friend decides to go to the only house that has lights on the street to try and email his scientist brother about the unfolding events.


While he and a friend go out the rest of them wait it out for their return.  When the two do come back they are stunned and one of them describes watching the same set of friends minus the two (themselves) in a room sitting at a table in the other house but exactly like the one they left.  From there on events unfold that convey to the viewer that there are basically at least two sets of friends (the same friends) having a similar conversation and interaction which confounds logic.


They are all living in parallel universes and each stream continues to exist without collapsing into the other.


The movie ends with one of the guys talking to his female friend when his phone rings with the caller id of the same girl standing in front of him.


I suppose I now see the way things really are.  Or do I?







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