Redux Review Redux – Multiverse-hopping child kidnapping thriller keeps things simple | film

pPerhaps it’s the general obsession with improving every aspect of life that has driven the abundance of time-loop thrillers in recent years, such as Predestination, Looper, Edge of Tomorrow et al. The McManus brothers’ Redux Redux is a decently handled example from the lower budget end. It traps a bereaved mother and a naughty girl in a Sisyphean cycle of revenge, playing out as an intimate version of the Terminator where the credibility of 12-step grief recovery, not the future of humanity, is what’s at stake.

In fact, Redux Redux is technically a multiverse movie. Erin (played by the director’s sister Michaela McManus) hails from the only universe where multiverse travel is possible, and uses what looks like a destroyed gas boiler to travel between different timelines. But one thing is constant: she always ends up killing Neville (Jeremy Holm), the short-service cook and child killer who kidnapped her daughter. She hopes to find the only multiverse in which her daughter is still alive. Instead, in her umpteenth response, she interrupts Neville with 15-year-old Mia (Stella Marcus) tied up with cable in his back room.

The episode works well as an allegory for the forced repetition of trauma, with Erin trapped in hatred, and her new ward displaying an unsettling enthusiasm for their actions. Despite the temporal trimmings and some early glitches with fellow grief-survivor Jonathan (Jim Cummings) who Erin picks up serially, the McManuses settle into a linear relationship that doesn’t get overly involved with time travel/multiverse kinks and paradoxes. It mainly centers around Mia’s attempts to make way for Eren, as well as fleshing out the “Underground Railroad” infrastructure for multiverse travel (maybe that’s not enough).

The upside of this candor is a certain snappy confidence as the McManuses imbue the road running and gunfighting, which resonates across the Eternals, with a Christopher Nolan toughness. But if it has the style, the substance isn’t fully present until the concluding act, which finally begins to bring the timeline’s convolutions into full collision with its protagonist’s fractured psyche. If it’s not quite as deceptive overall, Redux Redux still opens up a solid revenge and murder sideline for the genre.