The multiverse has been having a moment lately, particularly in film. In popular culture, the MCU has dug into the concept big time with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Fantastic Four, and most likely the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. Everything Everywhere All At Once won seven Academy Awards. It’s an honest to goodness thing.

The concept of multiverses is also a poorly understood thing, at least from a narrative perspective. It’s true that filmmakers can go batshit insane with multiple variants of the same character, or drop characters into increasingly bananas alternate dimensions. Does that mean it’s an effective storytelling device? It can be, assuming that the storyteller knows how to use that particular tool well.

If you tell me a story about the multiverse, I probably won’t care too much. If you tell me a story about grief, trauma, the heavy lift of parenting, and how healing and closure are two different things, and you use your multiverse tool in service of that story, I’ll pay attention. That’s the genius of the indie sci-fi thriller Redux Redux. It uses a genre to say something real.

I need you to understand that Irene (Michaela McManus) is not in possession of a time machine, but a multi-verse machine, so what she can’t do is prevent the murder of her daughter. Instead, she can close herself in the coffin-like machine, and hop to another universe, one that’s almost the same as hers. Her multiverse machine is big and unwieldy, and she spends time simply trying to figure out how to transport and store the damn thing.*

What’s Irene doing with this gizmo? She tracks Neville (Jeremy Holm) across infinite universes. By now, Irene has spent more time either with Neville or observing him than she ever did with her child. Neville (almost) always works at a diner. In some universes he’s a cook, in others a server. The only constants thus far are that he’s always a serial killer, and he always ends the life of Irene’s daughter in an unspeakable manner. 

Irene has dedicated her life, or whatever is left of it, to killing Neville. While she can’t save her child, she can get revenge – theoretically forever. She’s stabbed him, shot him, strangled him, lit him on fire, hundreds of times. Every so often she meets Jonathan (Jim Cummings) at a grief support group. He’s a sweet man. Irene sometimes talks to him, has a drink with him, and hooks up with him. She can’t do more than that, because a relationship would interrupt her pursuit of Neville. 

So she keeps killing Neville. Does she feel vindicated or triumphant every time? As far as I can tell, she doesn’t feel anything any longer. Killing Neville is just what she does, until a new variable arrives. That variable is Mia (Stella Marcus), a teenage runaway that Neville has abducted. Irene helps her escape, then discovers the beginning of a choice. Can Irene help Mia get her own retribution? Should she? Is revenge a way to balance the cosmic scales, or is it prolonging Irene’s grief?

Redux Redux doesn’t follow Irene to wacky and unbelievable universes where people have spaghetti for hair, or where the dead rose, or where Kamala Harris was elected President. Directors Kevin McManus and Michael McManus made the choice to portray their multiverse with more subtlety. In one dimension, Irene goes to a diner and has coffee in a yellow mug. In another, the mug is red. It’s a wise choice, because the McManus Brothers remove our expectation of multiversal shenanigans. That causes us to focus on Irene’s quest for vengeance. Lest you think that the entire movie focuses on Irene staring into the middle distance as she grapples with an existential crisis, not to worry! There are enough fights, gunplay, and explosions to make for a zippy thriller.

Luckily, the McManus brothers have seen to it that Redux Redux isn’t stupid. Their screenplay cunningly mixes together a serial killer thriller, a revenge story, and a drama about grief, along with a light sprinkling of science fiction. The result is something that feels fresh, and even when we’ve all seen movies that preached the hollowness of revenge, they were never quite like this. The script also takes the time to make Irene and Mia fully fleshed out characters. Their choices push the plot forward, and when the two of them are in conflict, it feels natural.

Michaela McManus** carries the film as Irene, and she turns in a strong and subtle performance. McManus sells the physical aspects of the role, and handles the shooting, stabbing, and bear-trap related hijinks nicely. The emotion is where she really excels. A lesser performance would push the maternal instincts of the character. Here, McManus portrays Irene as someone so focused on eternal revenge, all of her humanity dangles by a thread. Watch her early scenes with Jim Cummings, and watch how McManus plays a wildly damaged woman who is almost, but not quite, able to behave normally around another person. There’s something off about her, and McManus cannily shows us Irene’s pain, rage, and gradual hope. As Mia, Stella Marcus does good work as a young woman who’s been constantly failed by the foster system. She has a tough shell that feels like it came from a place of awful experience.

Redux Redux is a clever thriller that knows how to use the seemingly infinite permutations of the multiverse effectively. It’s the rare film that’s stylish without losing sight of substance. I appreciate the McManus’ efforts to show us that, no matter what dimension we travel to and how different things are, some things never change. For good or ill.

*Which leads to one of the funnier moments of product placement, where Irene constantly uses rental vehicles from Penske. 

**She’s the sister of the directors. All of them have extensive film experience, meaning that this was the most overqualified family project I’ve ever seen. 

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.