Intriguing +1 a Strange Sci-Fi Time Loop
David (Rhys Wakefield) has messed things up with longtime girlfriend Jill (Ashley Hinshaw). He’s hoping to apologize and atone for his missteps at the party being thrown by friend Angad (Rohan Kymal), a massive event that seemingly every High School senior and returning College student in the entire town has been invited to. His best bud Teddy (Logan Miller) is joining him, hoping to score with a drunken coed while at the same ostensibly assisting his BFF on his romantic quest.
PHOTO: IFC Films
For +1, this is a setup and scenario right out of Bachelor Party, Can’t Hardly Wait or Project X, but director Dennis Iliadis (The Last House on the Left remake), who conceived the film’s story, isn’t content to leave things at that. Introducing a scenario straight out of “The Twilight Zone” or “The Outer Limits,” David and his friends find themselves involved in a surreal, highly disconcerting time warp courtesy of a recently impacted meteorite and a series of odd blackouts, exact duplicates of their hard-partying selves suddenly appearing to go reenact the exact same motions they themselves just went through only doing so a good 15 or 20 minutes after the original versions had already danced them.
Iliadis and screenwriter Bill Gullo don’t spend a lot of time trying to make sense out of any of this, focusing instead on their leads and their differing reactions as they try and figure out what is going on. See, with every blackout their doppelgängers disappear only to suddenly reappear a few minutes closer in time to their future selves when the lights come back on. What’s going to happen when the newcomers catch up with the originals? Will they takeover? Will the actual David, Jill, Teddy and all the rest cease to exist? Is this some weird alien takeover? Or is all of this just some sort of celestial mirror allowing those who look into it to see into their own souls, all learning lessons they’ll hopefully take to heart as they move forward with the rest of their lives?
The fun of the movie is watching how the various characters react to the discovery of what is taking place. Some, like Teddy, complete freak out and spiral out of control, especially after he rolls over in bed after having a mind-blowing encounter with the party’s sexiest reveler (a charming Natalie Hall) only to discover a clueless version of her lying next to him while the original is cleaning herself off in the shower. Some, like David, look at these events as a possibility to right unintended wrongs, using what he learns from the actual Jill about his mistakes and shortcoming to woo the secondary Jill into his arms. Others, meanwhile, take the time to sit with themselves and have conversations, getting to know who they are with a casual intimacy unlike anything possible had this seemingly random occurrence not taken place.
It’s kind of fascinating, and I can’t say I ever wanted to take my eyes off the film once events began to unfold. But the dark and twisted turns Iliadis and Gullo’s scenario started taking didn’t work for me as well as I wanted them to, the payoff to all of this not having the weight or significance I imagined was intended. David’s perversely selfish decisions don’t come attached to any sort of comeuppance, and while I do admit they don’t necessarily required them, I would have felt better had the script at least hinted that repercussions might potentially be in the cards.
PHOTO: IFC Films
Yet Iliadis manages to maintain a heady balance between the supernatural and the inherently human, and while I didn’t completely buy that past and future versions of the same group of people could be held apart as long as the movie imagines, they’re all at the same gosh darn party, after all, the director’s sleight of hand keeping them strangers is admittedly impressive. Additionally, the film is incredibly well shot by ace cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr. (The Master) and features crackerjack production design and art direction, the glossy sheen the filmmaker crafts having a hyper-realistic hypnotic quality I wholly responded to.
There’s a lot to like about +1, plenty of idiosyncratic, highly original moments worthy of singling out for praise. If I’m not entirely satisfied with the movie that’s not for lack of interest, so much of what Iliadis and Gullo have come up with stuff I want to think about more in greater detail, and I’ll certainly be taking a second glance at this one sooner rather than later. I just don’t think the story comes to a satisfying conclusion, the final moments a distant and semi-nonsensical head-scratcher I’ll likely never be comfortable with. But there’s still plenty to love here, and curious genre fans looking for something a little bit different owe it to themselves to give the film a chance.
Film Rating: 2½ (out of 4)
