Coma (Movie)

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    ‘Coma’ Review: A Labyrinthine Lockdown Movie

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    Bertrand Bonello’s latest horror film, dedicated to his teenage daughter, pushes the boundaries of the conventional pandemic movie.“Coma,” a pandemic-themed horror movie by the director Bertrand Bonello, takes its title from one of its two cloistered characters living in France during the coronavirus lockdown. Patricia Coma (Julia Faure) is a social media influencer whose channel is made up of surreal how-to videos, philosophical monologues and weather reports (though it doesn’t matter, “you can’t go out, anyway,” she explains).Watching Patricia is an unnamed teenage girl (Louise Labèque), moody and introspective as she spends her days in confinement glued to the screen.Don’t be misled by the more conventional pandemic scenes, like the teenager’s video chats with friends — “Coma” pushes the boundaries of the so-called lockdown movie with its thrilling, chaotic form.At first, it seemingly tracks the teenager’s online interactions: Patricia’s uncanny missives and a smutty sitcom played out by stop-motion dolls. We also see the teenager’s recurring nightmare, in which she’s trapped in a purgatorial forest, as well as surveillance footage in which she appears to be out in the streets.With Bonello’s fluid editing, the gradual spillover between scenes and intrusions by reality itself — then-President Trump’s tweets play a role — seems to flatten time. That’s certainly become a cliché in films like “Locked Down” or Bo Burnham’s “Inside,” but Bonello’s experimental approach brings a new level of desperation to this compressed version of reality.As a relatively short, minimalistic production, “Coma” plays like an amuse-bouche to Bonello’s recent epic “The Beast,” about the tragedy of characters who lack free will. Patricia is a kind of evangelist for this worldview. She sells an electronic memory game, like Simon, that the teenager plays to kill time, but, as if by some kind of dark magic, cannot seem to lose.The film begins and ends with a subtitled message written by Bonello to his daughter, to whom he dedicated the film. It acknowledges the unique despair of her generation — of children accustomed to climate change and school shootings; their best years spent online, trapped at home during a global pandemic.This message is also what makes “Coma” surpass the trappings of a lockdown movie: It may be anchored to that period, but it speaks to an existential crisis that defines many right now.ComaNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Five Science Fiction Movies to Stream Now

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      If you’re interested in alien invasions, vivid dreamscapes or adorable cats, this collection of streaming picks may be just right for you.‘Come True’Stream it on Hulu.At one point in Anthony Scott Burns’s deeply unsettling movie, a character brings up the influential science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick. It’s a daunting reference point to set for yourself, especially because the film explores one of Dick’s favorite subjects — the porous borders of reality. Amazingly, “Come True” lives up to the challenge.The teenage Sarah (the elfin, magnetic Julia Sarah Stone) tries to live a normal life despite being so alienated, for unknown reasons, from her mother that she has chosen to be homeless. Enrolling in a sleep study may help with two of Sarah’s problems at once: finding a bed on a semiregular basis and figuring out why she is plagued by nightmares — the movie’s elaborately designed dreamscapes are absolutely terrifying.“Come True” borrows from sci-fi, psychological drama and horror to send viewers on a journey to the outer limits of the unconscious. It bravely refuses pat explanations, or even to provide a general road map — it is as slippery and disorienting as a dream. This, of course, is only a mild reflection of the hell Sarah is going through, but it does create a constant state of dread in the viewer; at its best “Come True” brings to mind Jonathan Glazer’s cult darling “Under the Skin.” And the final shot will make your head spin.‘Reminiscence’Stream it on HBO Max.Let’s get one thing out of the way: For the most part, Lisa Joy’s debut feature as director was not greeted with positive reviews.But watching “Reminiscence” — which Joy, a co-creator of the series “Westworld,” also wrote — with an open mind suggests a misunderstanding about the film’s nature.Set in a futuristic Miami half-flooded by rising waters, the movie has a hard-boiled exterior: Hugh Jackman’s Nick Bannister is a brooding investigator whose specialty is time rather than space. He and his associate, Watts Sanders (Thandiwe Newton), help people retrieve and relive their memories, no matter how submerged they might be.But if you go in expecting a futuristic noir or a sci-fi parable about climate change, you are bound to be disappointed: “Reminiscence” is a romance, albeit one set in a soggy world. It is entirely preoccupied with Nick’s obsession with Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), a sultry singer plying her trade in joints from Miami to New Orleans. He can’t stop thinking about her, and his all-consuming obsession is to find her again. If anything, the film sits at the unexpected center of a Venn diagram combining Alfred Hitchcock’s surrealist exploration of the psychoanalytical unconscious, “Spellbound,” and Nicholas Sparks‘s tales of fervent love. The straightforward thriller scenes aren’t all that effective, but the ones dealing with the crushing weight of love are.‘Coma’Rent or buy on most major platforms.Some housekeeping: There are quite a few movies named “Coma,” so make sure you look for the recent Russian one. And if you prefer subtitles to the ubiquitous English dub, head over to the version streaming for free (with ad breaks) on IMDb TV.Not that the dialogue in all that important in Nikita Argunov’s film, which often looks like an M.C. Escher drawing come to C.G.I. life.One day, a ragtag group of cool-looking strangers saves Viktor (Rinal Mukhametov) from menacing creatures that appear to be made of black dust. His new friends take Viktor to safety in a universe in which the laws of physics don’t apply — chunks of entire buildings float upside down, bridges levitate in the sky and link airborne islands. This is a world made up of what goes on in the minds of people who are in a coma, a fantastical reality that feels unfinished because it is based on those collective brains’ partial awareness. (Clearly, inner space stands in for outer space in this week’s column.)While this sounds “Tenet”-like complicated, the movie has a certain playfulness that defies the highfalutin concept. The visuals can lack a certain depth at times, but the 2-D feel has a particular old-school fun appeal, as if the actors were agitating in front of painted backdrops. Plus, a lot of scenes boil down to the group trying to escape those black beasties, which are known as Reapers. Sometimes all you need is a good chase scene, even if it’s topsy-turvy.‘Alien Outbreak’Stream it on Vudu.This scrappy British indie is streaming on Vudu for free with ad breaks, which gives you a few seconds to grab a drink and puzzle an existential mystery: How can a filmmaker set such a precisely composed mood and create such accomplished set pieces, and at the same time tolerate such a lackadaisical, to put it mildly, approach to acting?Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More