Zoya Lowe (Mary-Louise Parker) has a problem, but it might be sort of a familiar one, which is a little symptomatic of just what’s ailing Omni Loop. Zoya is a quantum physicist who’s unfortunately developed a black hole growing inside her that will eventually prove fatal. So, with the help of some mysterious pills she found and unbeknownst to her family — and here’s the familiar part — she’s begun reliving the final week of her life over and over, stuck on repeat.
It’s helpful at least that Omni Loop knows that you know you’ve, uh, seen this all before, because that allows it to speed through some of the more tedious exposition that so often plagues conceits of this ilk. That said, we still have to get a few more explainers when Zoya meets Paula (Ayo Edebiri), a promising physics student, and recruits her to assist in ending the loop and thus repairing the timeline. But there’s a problem. Unfortunately, Paula’s memory of their work resets at the end of Zoya’s loops, and so explaining that to her replaces the setup we might get in another movie playing with these tropes. It also has something to do with a man shrunken down to subatomic size, but that’s a thread that never really becomes clear.
Parker and Edebiri have clear chemistry, and in tandem with the film’s playfulness with pace and familiarity with plot device, the film’s first half really flies by with ease. Parker, due to the narrative’s structure, gets the chance to let us in on her emotional states by virtue of us knowing that she has or hasn’t experienced an event previously, while Edebiri — already well established as excelling at trying to remain calm while everything spirals out of control around her — is deployed perfectly. With regard to this central duo, then, the execution is on point.
It’s in its second half that Omni Loop begins to bleed momentum. The scientific efforts give way to more introspective moping as Zoya tries to patch up some damage from her past and reconcile with her family. And a that becomes the focus of the narrative, Paula has nothing to do as a character, simply hanging out there on the periphery. What’s worse — and perhaps unavoidable under the circumstances — events that are already repetitive by design slowly become monotonous, sapping the film of its early juice and leaving Omni Loop‘s idiosyncrasies to ultimately be swallowed up by its own more routine ambitions.
DIRECTOR: Bernardo Britto; CAST: Mary-Louise Parker, Ayo Edebiri, Carlos Jacott, Hannah Pearl Utt; DISTRIBUTOR: Magnolia Pictures; IN THEATERS: September 20; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 47 min.
