‘Parallel’ is a sci-fi thriller that follows the journey of a grieving mother Vanessa (Danielle Deadwyler) as she finds herself trapped and navigating between parallel universes. Lost between wolds, the woman searches for more than just a way out.
Taking a break at their lake-side home, Vanessa and her husband Alex (Aldis Hodge) and his brother Martel (Edwin Hodge) try to get a little distance from the outside world as the couple are grieving the loss of their young son. As the result of a tragic car accident, Vanessa cannot move past blaming herself for the accident. Understanding yet strained, Alex tries to be there for her as the two try to live in a world without their son.
Out on a walk in the woods, armed with a rifle in case of a bear attack, Vanessa is shocked to see herself. Defending herself, the woman shoots her double and retreats home. Not believing her story, Vanessa soon finds herself wandering back to the woods. Losing her bearings, Vanessa gets stuck in a loop on the forset path, seemingly unable to find her way home.
Once escaped from the path in the woods, Vanessa returns to a home not her own. Even though the building is the same and Alex and Martel are there, she finds herself in a different reality to her own. Here she discovers Alex to have been the one driving the car on that fateful day they lost their son.
In shock she runs back to the woods to try and find her way back to her own reality, her home and her family. Disheartened, Vanessa finds another version of Alex wandering the woods, with him having lost his Vanessa and his son, also searching for a way back to his reality. Teaming up, the two explore different realities, with Alex gathering supplies to aid them in their search for a way back.
The two split up to test Alex’s theory of how the two could retrace their steps and find a way out. Unwilling to wait too long for him to return, Vanessa goes in search of him, coming across a dead Alex. Later meeting up with the alternate Alex she knows, he confronts her by stating that she has to be willing to do whatever it takes to create a life for herself in a reality that is suitable, as they cannot find their way back, with Alex having gathered supplies to destroy the passage ways between parallel spaces, effectively cutting himself off from any possible intruders to the reality he will now claim as his own.
Enraged, Vanessa seeks a way out and comes across another version of herself. Sympathetic but desperate to get out, she kills her alternate version and retreats back to the lake-side house. Waking up to a reality that is not her own, but doesn’t present obvious constraints, she makes her peace and decides to settle. Wandering back to her bedroom, Vanessa turns to her young son’s room, discovering he is still alive in this reality.
A remake of ‘Ping xing sen lin’ (‘Parallel Forrest’) (2020) written and directed by Lei Zheng, adapted by Aldis and Edwin Hodge, the film explores the inner turmoil of a family devastated by the tragic loss of their son. Examining both the innermost emotional repercussions of such a tragedy through Vanessa, the film follows Deadwyler’s character as she traverses the shifting parallel spaces in search of her home.
Both a psychological and physical trial for the bereaved mother, Vanessa trudges through the forest as she desperately searches for a way back to her home. After discovering the nature of her reality and that there are an infinite number of alternate realities, she tries to find a world where her son may still be alive. Already on the brink of a complete breakdown following her loss, Vanessa is privy to a multitude of realities where the same fate has befallen her alternate selves, discovering that her loss has been endured by many versions of herself and her family.
Making her peace and understanding that she needs to come to terms with the death of her son, Deadwyler delivers a heartbreaking performance of desperation and almost insurmountable pain, running through the woods of infinite possibilities, only to find herself exhausted as she searches for a reality that she ultimately learns is impossible to get to.
Once Vanessa has made peace with the loss of her love, she inadvertently finds herself in a reality that has the potential to become that which she had been looking for the entire time. Not forgetting the price of what it had cost Deadwyler to get to that reality, as she had taken the life of her alternate self, the film leaves the viewers to meditate on the emotional and moral repercussions of her actions she may face later.
Shot and edited beautifully, the limited number of sets is made to feel like an infinite number of planes and realities. Losing oneself in the multitude of worlds with Vanessa, the film slowly expands to an immeasurable hellscape through which one can only wish for Vanessa to reach a safe place to return to. Beautiful yet treacherous, ‘Parallel’ delivers a visually stunning and philosophically curious meditation on the nature of loss and sorrow as the mourning mother looks both for her way back home and a way forward thereafter.
Score: 3/4
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