The Mirage
Premise - Two storms twenty-five years apart allow for a connection in the space-time continuum that can be accessed through an old TV and video camera. Vera accidentally finds this connection when she sees a young boy, Nico Lasarte, on the screen from twenty-five years ago on the day he was supposed to die. By saving his life, she unintentionally creates an alternate reality which she desperately wants to reverse to get her daughter back.
Review - This is one hell of a complicated movie. My friend and I had to pause it once every few minutes to talk it over and make sure we know who was who, when was when, what was what, and why was why. We would have to ask each other really complicated questions like, "Okay so in timeline one... bla bla bla... but in timeline two bla bla bla... so now in timeline three what is happening again?" It didn't help that this was a foreign film, and we were watching with subtitles while distractedly eating dinner. But at the end of this film, my friend turned to me and said, "How in the world does someone watch this in a theater??" I don't think this movie ever was in a theater, as I believe Netflix was the original distributor, but she still had a point. This is not an easily watchable film if you really want to understand what's going on. You may be able to be entertained on a surface level, at best, if you lose track of all the different timelines.
The timelines may be confusing but not nonsensical. There are no obvious plot holes and it all fits together. That's not to say the execution was well done, though. While it doesn't defy any rules of logic, I still say there are a lot of, "That makes no sense" moments, or moments where the details were either entirely extraneous and unnecessary, or crucial character development pieces were missing. Primarily what bothered me is the setup. When the TV's connect 1989 to 2014, and Vera looks in the TV, she's automatically freaking out and like, "Oh my gosh! I can speak to the past!" I mean, there may have been a quick moment where she noticed the tape was still in the box, but really, she freaked out and realized the connection way too quickly. Any logical person would be thinking, "Hmm, something's wrong with the TV" and maybe just go back to bed. That's what I would have done. But when the boy in the TV says, "Hello?" she immediately starts talking back, already knowing it's not an old recording or a trick. It's weird. Also she cared a lot about saving some kid she just heard about. And then when adult Nico (who we don't know yet is Nico) comes back into the new timeline, he is VERY poorly introduced and we spent a lot of time going, "Who's that guy?" In hindsight, it's weird that nobody was ever like, "That's your husband" to her, when he was in the room with her a lot.
Nico buying into her story makes sense, because he lived it as well. But everyone else playing into her story felt really out of place. The doctor had his head on straight, saying it was trauma-induced amnesia after one of her patients died on the operating table. Then he just tells her to go home without even explaining where her home is so that was just irresponsible. There are others though, like the author, who just talk to her as if her story is real though which, if this were real life, is kind of unfair playing into someone's delusions.
Then there's the fact that the whole story is based upon Vera wanting to reunite with her daughter Gloria, who doesn't exist in this new timeline. And I get that ANY mother is going to want their daughter back, but they really didn't sell the mother-daughter relationship well beforehand so like, there wasn't a lot of attachment to Gloria. For the most part it's like, "Dang, your new life is so much better." Her new husband loves her so much more and she's basically like, "I want you to die, so I can have my daughter back." Which makes sense for a mom, but it's a lot to ask of this poor guy.
In the end, in Timeline 3, it's the best situation possible. She's got her daughter back, and Angel can go to jail, and it leaves it open ended for her to re-marry Nico and divorce David. So woohoo for happy endings with no compromises or sacrifices.
The film was a ride and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had fun with the mental exercise the film created, trying to work out how it all fit together. I may criticize a lot of the execution, but it was a fun movie and a classic "whoops I messed up the space-time continuum" premise. (72/100)
What to watch for -Mrs. Weiss's death and body disposal were pretty dark but entertaining. That's another thing I didn't mention throughout the rest of the review, but it also has a murder element to the story that gets to be solved!
If you enjoyed this film, I'd recommend The Invisible Guest!
Directed by Oriol Paulo
Distributed by Netflix
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