Redux Redux fuses sci-fi gimmicks to build an emotional revenge thriller

A lot of recent multiverse stories use alternate worlds as a way to explore grief, with Fringe, Rick and Morty, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness all featuring characters who travel to other worlds trying to reunite with their lost loved ones. Cobra Kai and American Vandal writers Kevin and Matthew McManus embrace that trope in their low-budget science fiction thriller Redux Redux, but the writer-directors freshened up the concept by combining it with another genre staple: the time-loop story. The combination creates a moody, tightly focused drama, though the McManus brothers should have gone lighter on clunky monologues explaining what’s going on, and just relied on vibes and subtext to power the film.

Irene (Michaela McManus) comes from a world where multiversal travel is common enough that people talk about universe-hopping devices the way people in our world might compare car models. After a serial killer murders Irene’s teenage daughter, Irene starts looking for a reality where her kid is still alive. In the film’s most daring innovation on the genre, Irene handles her repeated disappointments by avenging her daughter over and over again, moving well past being a teary mom and turning into a serial killer herself, solely focused on killing her daughter’s murderer.

Irene’s been at this for far too long by the time the movie opens. She has the jaded, bitter quality Andy Samberg’s character in 2020’s Palm Springs had after 40 years of time-looping. Every part of her process has become rote — drop into a new world, find the hulking diner chef Neville (Jeremy Holm), confirm he’s actually killed her daughter by breaking into his home to check out his creepy hair collection, murder him, then hop to the next world.

Every time-looper knows the importance of periodically breaking out of their routine and decompressing. Irene’s preferred method is to introduce herself to Jonathan (Jim Cummings) outside a grief support meeting, bond about their shared loss over a drink, then hook up in his car. Time loop and multiverse stories often lend themselves to a sort of nihilistic solipsism because the characters’ actions have few consequences, and Jonathan is the epitome of Irene’s struggles to connect with anyone on her journey. Jonathan is the person she reaches out to at her lowest moment, yet he always sees her as a stranger.

Irene’s cross-universe, single-man murder spree is interrupted when she invades yet another version of Neville’s home, and finds a kidnapped teenager he hasn’t gotten around to killing yet. Mia (Stella Marcus) is a feral runaway with a propensity for biting people. Once she understands that Irene plans to kill Neville, she demands that Irene let her come along to get justice. Their relationship arc is predictable, but the actors play off each other well, as Mia repeatedly infuriates Irene by pushing her to break her well-trodden routines.

Most science fiction stories that deal with the multiverse focus on spectacle and radically different versions of our world, but Irene feels more like she’s stuck in a time loop, because the changes each jump brings are barely noticeable. Instead of playing with the possibilities of endless worlds, Redux Redux conveys a feeling that Irene is adrift in liminal places — gas stations, parking lots, abandoned homes, and seedy hotels. One of the film’s wildest scenes involves Irene bartering with other multiversal travelers for parts for her world-hopping machine, revealing a whole underground economy and communication network that feels like it could have provided the foundation for a very different movie.

Image: Saban Films

But for better and worse, Redux Redux remains laser-focused on Irene’s journey. Like the multiverse concept, the time-loop gimmick has also been used as a way to represent grief and despair, in Russian Doll and All You Need Is Kill. Redux Redux is at its best when it leans into those ideas, taking a break from the shootouts and brawls to focus on Irene’s interactions with Jonathan. Her usual opening move when she hooks up with him is asking him for a cigarette, so she’s shocked when it doesn’t work in one universe, because she’s found a version of him who has quit smoking. That’s a tight, efficient way of representing how Irene’s growing feeling of being stuck in her loop is exacerbated by the possibility that her companion in misery is beginning to move forward with his life.

But for every subtle moment like that, Redux Redux features an unnecessary monologue where Irene explains her journey and what her thirst for revenge has cost her. She tells Mia about how she’s lost her humanity, even though that’s already obvious in the way she methodically murders Neville over and over. The path other versions of Irene have taken would have been better left implied rather than spelled out.

Despite those flaws, Redux Redux demonstrates what makes multiverse stories so compelling. While the concept has become overused as a gimmick for comic book crossovers, it’s at its best in more personal, grounded tales about regretful people searching for better versions of their lives. Confucius apocryphally said, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Irene digs countless ones as she gets her revenge over and over again and dies a bit more on the inside each time, leaving her as worn and world-weary as a time-looper. It’s a powerful way to convey the feeling of being trapped in a trauma loop, and illustrating the strength and courage needed to break the cycle and actually live again.

Redux Redux is screening in select theaters now.