CURVATURE (2017)

Studio:       Screen Media
Director:    Diego Hallivis
Writer:       Brian DeLeeuw
Producer:  Julio Hallivis, Diego Hallivis
Stars:     Lyndsy Fonseca, Glenn Morshower, Alex Lanipekun, Noah Bean, Linda Hamilton, Zach Avery

Review Score:

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Summary:

An amnesiac engineer comes to suspect that she traveled back in time to stop herself from committing a vengeful murder.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

May 26, 2017 – Helen Phillips continues to grieve over the apparent suicide of her husband Wells, whom she found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in their remote cabin’s garage three weeks earlier. Helen has conversations with Tomas Dettman, her husband’s research partner who asks for her blessing to continue Wells’ work, as well as with her coworker Alex and former professor Florence, who now works at a university lab.

Helen wakes up with amnesia to discover it is inexplicably June 2nd. After noticing that her car is missing, Helen receives a call from an unknown woman warning her to leave. The voice on the phone guides Helen through escaping her house when it is infiltrated by Kraviz, a henchman working for Tomas.

Helen seeks Alex’s help to find out what happened. Together they go to Wells and Helen’s cabin to look for clues. Someone shows up in Helen’s car before driving away suddenly. On a hunch, Helen uses Alex’s phone to call her own number and another Helen (Helen Prime) answers. Helen Prime warns Alex that it isn’t safe to be with Helen. Helen realizes that Helen Prime was the woman who warned her to flee from Kraviz.

Helen explains to Alex that Wells was working on a time machine. However, it can only send someone back 36 hours and results in amnesia like hers. Helen begins trying to puzzle out how and why she was sent back.

Kraviz traces Helen Prime to a hardware store, but she escapes. Kraviz reports back to Tomas at the laboratory where Wells’ research continues and warns that Helen Prime appeared to be buying bomb-making materials.

Helen follows clues left by either Wells or Helen Prime that lead her to a hidden video camera in the cabin. However, she is unable to access its footage without the proper password.

Tomas and Kraviz come to the cabin looking for Helen, not knowing that there is also a Helen Prime. Helen uses a sniper rifle she found earlier to hold the men at gunpoint while she and Alex escape.

Helen Prime texts Alex with a message indicating that the video will show why she cannot allow Tomas to live. Helen rolls her vehicle back in the city after being pursued by Tomas and Kraviz. Helen and Alex flee on foot, eventually holing up in a hotel room where they crack the password and watch the recovered video footage.

The hidden camera shows a conversation at the cabin between Wells and Tomas in which Wells threatens to go to the press if Tomas insists on partnering with a military contractor to use their tech for Black Ops assassinations. Tomas drugs Wells’ drink and stages his death to look like a suicide.

Helen concludes that Helen Prime intends to kill Tomas as an act of revenge. However, Helen also theorizes that she possibly regretted the murder and was sent back in time to stop herself from committing the crime.

Kraviz breaks into the hotel room. Helen injures herself escaping through the window. Kraviz captures Alex. Alex forces Kraviz to watch the video in order to prove that Tomas is actually a conspiratorial murderer, which Kraviz did not know.

Helen revisits Florence at the university and learns that Helen Prime was recently there working on an unknown device. Helen steals a car from a man at a gas station and races to Tomas’ laboratory where she is taken into custody by security.

Helen explains to Tomas that she is there to save him from Helen Prime. Tomas refuses to believe there is a second Helen, explaining that it would have been impossible for her to access the machine and go back in time without his team knowing. Meanwhile, Helen Prime uses the commotion caused by Helen’s arrival to sneak into the lab, send herself back in time, and leave a bomb to explode in her wake.

Helen finally realizes that Helen Prime’s plan all along was to use the appearance of a plot to kill Tomas as a means of luring Helen to the facility to create a distraction. Helen Prime’s bomb explodes, destroying the time machine. Alex finds Helen and they leave the ruined lab together.

Some time later, Helen and Alex return to work. Helen receives a package containing a flash drive sent by Helen Prime. On the drive, Helen finds a video of her and Wells together in happier times.

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Review:

It’s been one month since Helen’s husband Wells committed suicide.  It’s also been one week since Helen gave Wells’ engineering partner Tomas permission to continue her husband’s research, and she finds herself oddly unable to remember anything between then and now.

Helen’s amnesiac mind barely has a moment to mull where the missing days went when a mysterious phone call instructs her to escape her home immediately.  An unknown man suddenly breaks in, prompting Helen to hurriedly break out.

Unsure of where to pull the first thread that may unravel this riddle, Helen turns to her trusted coworker Alex.  Together, the two of them follow clues Helen comes to suspect she may have actually left for herself.  As Helen explains to Alex, Wells was working on time travel technology and it appears as though Helen is suffering the side effects of having gone through it.  Helen isn’t sure how or for what purpose.  But when she discovers that the voice on the phone was another version of her, Helen realizes she’ll have to uncover the truth before the shadowy men on her tail find Helen first.

As time travel thrillers go, “Curvature” is okay, for lack of a more enthusiastic adjective.  Basic balls of hidden secrets, double cross twists, and unknown agendas are juggled in a simple circle over a relatively breezy 85 minutes.  “Curvature” merely bobbles its ability to be more impressive because its story relies on everyone being unreasonably cryptic about everything in order to foster intrigue.

Solving the movie’s mystery, which could be done in the first ten minutes if anyone uttered a straight fact, forces Helen to travel a trial-and-error trail where the majority of actions involve puzzling out overcomplicated clues.  Lyndsy Fonseca fares fine as Helen, yet has similarly little chance of achieving a better descriptor for her performance since the script keeps her narrowly focused on interacting with objects instead of predominantly with people.

Helen becomes so preoccupied with moving props or cracking passwords that she doesn’t have enough opportunities to engage emotionally.  Scattered flashbacks fill in a few blanks, yet even then Helen is a passive observer of her own backstory.  Helen otherwise wraps herself up in plot extension beats, not character development ones.

Another hurdle in Helen’s way is her passionless partner Alex.  I won’t call out his name because I take no pleasure in panning an off-the-radar performer, but the actor playing Alex alternates between entirely unconvincing and outright hollow.  His being blasé is made more unfortunate by hitching him to deeply personal moments with Helen that can’t land due to the roadblock of his pedestrian presence.

“Terminator” icon Linda Hamilton receives prominent billing for appearing in a disposable role literally any actress could play.  If her two simple scenes were completely cut, no one would notice she was missing and the movie would remain unchanged.  In fact, her character is so inconsequential that I thought perhaps Hamilton was added after the fact for name value alone.  Apparently, reports out of the movie’s FilmQuest premiere contend that a family issue cut Hamilton’s availability short.

The film counters some characterization snags with outstanding action for low-budget sci-fi.  The sore thumb about this though, is that these energetic scenes edit together rather well for a trailer, but feel forced within the context of a straightforward story.  Helen steals a car at gunpoint when she could easily travel via less violent means.  Other instances of opportunistic activity shove Helen into several foot chases, and a car one too, as contrivances collide to pick up the pace at the expense of making sense.

In this world, people generally act in the interests of entertainment as opposed to their own practical motivations.  Turn your head after any reveal to see why someone did what s/he did and rarely will the rationale seem reasonable.

On the other hand, “Curvature” works better when one simply smashes the rearview mirror and buckles up for the mild ride.  You won’t go above the speed limit, and you shouldn’t expect any hairpin turns.  But as a satisfying spin down a straightaway, “Curvature” keeps enough gas in its tank to be moderately enjoyable in the moment.  To put it in comparative terms, “Curvature” doesn’t come close to “Primer” or “Timecrimes” (review here) in terms of twisty time travel conundrums, though its small stakes scope would pair well with perhaps “2:22” (review here) or “Anti Matter” (review here) as an okay indie effort.

Review Score:  55

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