I was definitely excited for a sci-fi thriller, but this movie was so underwhelming. The visual effects also looked really bad. I thought there would be more manipulation of time, sort of in the same vein as Gravity/Interstellar(?) but I felt let down by that. This was advertised kind of as a timey-wimey scifi thriller but it's barely that.

Steve and Dennis work as EMTs in New Orleans when they attend to a series of strange calls of people catatonic, seemingly overdosing on drugs, injured in strange and horrible ways. There's a drug being distributed making waves, called Synchronic, that works by manipulating the Pineal gland in your brain. However, by adulthood the gland is no longer functional, so the drug has different effects on teenagers. As one can guess, the story is pretty obvious from here - I was actually hoping there would be more to it, but it was honestly very straightforward.

I felt like the structure of the narrative was overblown - seeing the different conversations about and between Dennis and Steve had almost nothing to do with the drug and the overarching plot. Why do we need to see different snippets of a conversation when the drug takes you to a different timeline IN THE PAST. The drug emphasises how it shows you a different time and how all time is happening all at once - but it literally sends Steve to the distant past at different times depending where he stands when he takes the drugs. None of the timelines are exactly explained. I also felt like the attempts at humour were really poor. Plus the sad moments didn't affect me either. When Steve takes his dog into the past and loses him there - we could have known that without seeing a weird flickering dog whining in the background.

The characters are so self-deprecating but it's just depressing because it plays into the dark tones of the movie. I liked the dynamic between Steve and Dennis but the side characters were not developed that much. I didn't understand the bonding scenes with Brianna or with Dennis' wife. The one scene where Dennis bonds with his daughter over her future - is that meant to explain why she turns to drugs? Anyway, I was just very disappointed by this film. It was trying to be a human and sympathetic story, but I didn't feel the emotions I would have if I had read this as a book. I would say it would be in the same camp as books like The Last Policeman, The Gone World or The Space between Worlds, but it just didn't hit me the same.

I did like the filming techniques and the colours of the different environments.