Mediocre time loop science fiction film needs a remake

Measuring end-of-life anxiety with an open heart, if not the most disciplined head, science fiction-tinged drama Omni-Loop offers its leads a few nice moments, but otherwise relies on the viewer's feelings about mortality off-screen to make its impact. The result, while enjoyable, is frustratingly dull, teetering in a soupy, ill-defined emotional middle ground – occasionally amusing but not quite funny, and unable (or unwilling) to commit substantively to thoughtful, piercing melancholy.

Set in Florida, the work was written and directed by Bernardo Britto. Omni-Loop It centers on Zoya Lowe (Mary-Louise Parker), a theoretical physicist who has written a series of academic textbooks with her husband Donald (Carlos Jacott). Zoya is diagnosed with a black hole between her lungs, given just a week to live, and sent home to spend that time with her small family, which includes her daughter Jayne (Hannah Pearl Utt).

When her nose starts bleeding during an early birthday party, Zoya excuses herself, slips into the bathroom, and takes a regeneration pill from a bottle in her medicine cabinet that put her back in the hospital five days earlier. This reaction, however, is not a magical, one-time fluke of a prescription drug; it doesn't spoil anything (since the film actually begins with 12-year-old Zoya finding a bottle of pills) to discover that she has had this ability her entire adult life.

Conflicted by the fatal nature of her diagnosis, Zoya crosses paths with Paula (Ayo Edebiri), a student at a local university. Needing both access to a lab and a sounding board, Zoya recruits Paula to try to decipher the chemical makeup of the pills, which might help her avert her death.

From comedies like And every day the groundhog greets you And Palm Springs to action tariff like Source code And Edge of tomorrow“Loop” movies have a rich history, their plots dealing with the imaginative possibilities (and often futility) of repeated attempts to make things right. Omni-Loopoffers a rather lackluster, unprepared treatment of its time travel concept. After adding a few daring elements to his film (in addition to the pills, Zoya and Paula enlist the research help of an invisible scientist who shrinks exponentially to microscopic sizes), Britto's script doesn't have the courage to do much with them. Worse still, these genre elements are not even treated honestly or consistently.

While Omni-Loop While The 40 Fingers somewhat connects Zoya's professional time jumps (a mentor sharply criticizes her impatience, sense of entitlement and laziness), the film does not grapple at all with what the misused ability to jump back in time has meant for her personal relationships. The post-pandemic fragmentation of memory has been a fertile narrative terrain in independent cinema, but the scripted origins of Omni-Loop In fact, filming dates back almost eight years, long before COVID-19, as Britto’s script selected for the Sundance Institute's Screenwriting Lab in 2016. Knowing this, it is difficult to analyze the chain of causes of the errors and determine whether they are the result of inconsistent notes being only half-heartedly adopted or of attempts to integrate different components from completely different drafts over the years.

If a film doesn't play on the conceit of temporal repetition for comic effect, then its engagement and catharsis are inevitably more tied to the torments of its characters' time-bent wistfulness. A film can guide its narrative through a highly subjective point of view, or show us the power of a broken relationship repaired. Omni-Loop chooses neither; Paula in particular is not clearly drawn, and the film stumbles through the one big scene that has a chance to lift her up and give her a similar motivation to Zoya.

Likewise, Zoya's family exists only as an accessory. The film's love story is superficial – odd, since Zoya and Donald are a college favorite couple. And while there are moments of mock tenderness (after each reboot, Zoya wakes up in her hospital bed with Jayne simply purring “Hi, Mommy”), the film isn't about a family in crisis. It just isn't rooted in anything concrete that you'd really care about.

Given the film's considerable 110-minute running time, it's also disappointing that other sequences don't build to something more emotional. Two scenes featuring Zoya, one with her academic rival and would-be lover Mark (Eddie Cahill) and another with his adult son Adam (Steven Maier), suggest a more interesting exploration of the unexpected impact we can have on others. Equally wasted is the inclusion of Zoya's mother Sandra (Fern Katz), which sets the stage, if not for a major twist at the end, then at least for a thematic jab at the inherited wisdom of generations. Unfortunately, viewers don't even get that.

There are no Charlie Kaufman-esque delights to be found in the margins either. The detail about the black hole in the body (a condition most common in astronauts or people exposed to high levels of radiation, a doctor explains with a shrug) seems like it came from another movie. The same goes for the invisible mini-scientist. Given the relative lack of absurdity otherwise present, these bits are less whimsical background details than sprinkles of sugar on a savory casserole.

If the film lacks narrative, its technical package at least convincingly conveys a relaxed tone. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith's gently pulsating electronic score conjures a complementary, repetitive mood, while cinematographer Ava Benjamin Shorr's composition and Britto and Martin Anderson's intuitive editing create a collection of snapshots of emotion.

Parker is Omni-Loopis her other saving grace, and the film offers her one of her most significant performances in years. Although it doesn't always come across on paper, Parker nicely conveys Zoya's rich inner life as a woman slowly coming to terms with the harsh reality that the benefits these pills offer her have, in turn, led to her weaknesses.

Edebiri is also quite compelling. Even though her performance falls into familiar rhythms, she is a good foil to Parker. Veteran character actor Harris Yulin, meanwhile, makes the most of a two-scene cameo as one of Zoya's former professors.

There are all kinds of possibilities Omni-Loop could have been much worse; it's easy to imagine the stiff, self-indulgent version of this story. But avoiding further pesky problems doesn't make Britto's lazy storytelling a success, or even a tailor-made oddity.

Regardless of how many years on earth we are individually granted, it is a universal experience to want more – even if not in real time, then certainly in cherished moments that we relive. In troubled moments, Omni-Loop touches on this truth in a beguiling way. But mostly it is a quietly murmured affirmation of immutable truths: that not all mysteries can be solved and not all problems can be fixed.

Director: Bernardo Britto
Writer: Bernardo Britto
With: Mary-Louise Parker, Ayo Edebiri, Carlos Jacott, Harris Yulin, Hannah Pearl Utt, Chris Witaske, Steven Maier
Release date: 20 September 2024