Director: Ieva Makselyte
Writer: David Magowan
Stars: Daniel Westwood, Faye Sewell, Tasha Holz, Brian Carter
Plot: Dare you look at your other side? When Neil meets Heather it is love at first sight… They enjoy a whirlwind romance and revel in how happy they are… Until they run into Machlis.
Running Time: 1 hour 19 minutes
IMDB Score: 6.0
Why I watched it: I liked the premise and read decent things about it.
Thoughts:I always like the chance to see smaller Indy films, films that you can go in and have no exceptions. A break from Hollywood films is always welcome.
What I liked: The premise you would think involved time travel, or heavy Sci-Fi explanation but one of the best things about Parallel is they keep it fairly simple, there’s another dimension a parallel one if you will and you can see into it with the help of a medium. That idea brings up questions is the medium real and what happens to you once you see your”mirror’ self.
Parallel takes your typical romance/drama and gives it a twist and the film really delves into people’s psyche. After the main couple meets the story begins slowly to get dark. The big question is asked about who we really are and what we really want and why do we seem to be drawn to the darker side of life. The couple really seems to be happy and if they are why are they drawn, almost like they need a fix, to see another side, if they’re happy what do they care.
Once they start they can’t seem to stop.
The best character for me was Machlis played by Brian Carter, you’re never sure to believe him or not but he has a couple of really good scenes and he shows us some of himself but never tips his hand. There’s a couple of nice turns and a big twist, and for me it worked I liked they way it plays out and even though it didn’t shock me the last ten minutes worked because of the set and what we learned from the characters.
What I didn’t Like: Some of the technology stuff was a bit of a problem the sound at times was tricky, the background music was louder than the dialogue and the sound would go up and down.
The film was short just around 80 minutes and I do think they could have fleshed out the two main characters more, let us see them together more, and also see the people they meet in the parallel side on this side so we could have a grasp of what they were “really” like. The end does seem a bit rushed and it would have been good to see David Magowan’s character go through his arc a little slower so we could get a feel of why he does what he does. He goes extreme in a couple of scenes and even though we can kind of get why I would have liked to see him fleshed out more, we don’t know his past so it’s hard for us to know if this is out of character for him.
Final Thoughts: This is smaller film, you can tell the budget was low but I like they fact they went with a different idea and did something creative with it.
Rating: 6/10
Movie Burner Entertainment 