FREQUENCIES
Directed by: Darren Paul Fisher
Written by: Darren Paul Fisher
Starring: Daniel Frazer, Eleanor Wylde, and Owen Pugh
Synopsis: In a world where a person's frequency determines all but maps out their life, a young man tries to break the rules to be with the love of his life, one with a much higher frequency than his.
Between the upcoming FREQUENCIES (the US name of OXV: THE MANUAL) and COHERENCE, I think of the saying goes: "two occurrences are a coincidence and a third is a pattern." If that's true, then I hope this trend of unique and thought-provoking science fiction continues.Taking place in a world where humans have figured out how to read a person's "frequency", thus determining their status within society, this movie explores themes of fate, love, free will, destiny with plenty of allegory at its central premise.
The movie revolves around Zak and Marie's blossoming relationship throughout the years, and the effect that it has on the world around them. The story starts from their formative years while being tested for their "frequencies" and goes all the way up to adulthood, where a discovery that Zak makes could have huge repercussions on society. Whenever you have have a high concept movie like this, so much depends on the quality of the writing and in the world-building. This movie doesn't spoon-feed you anything about the world, and in the best possible way, you are a forced to pay attention where you can pick up on little details about how society works and treats people of different frequencies.
One of the more unique aspects of the movie is that it is telling the same story but from Zak and Marie's perspective along with another character's perspective. With each new take, we get a different but richer story, and it makes you not only question but re-contextualize what you have just seen. Going off the premise, there's different ways to interpret this world's use of frequencies as an allegory for many a things; you could argue it's a social class allegory, about racial segregation, or even about learning disabilities, specifically about having autism.
Both Marie and Zak are two extremes in this world. Marie has an unusually high frequency while Zak has a negative frequency. They begin to have yearly one minute meet ups to see what happens when their frequencies meet with the result often times being disastrous for those around them. In this world, the people that have higher frequencies are both praised and pitied. Praised for their intelligence, but pitied for the lack of emotions. Due to this, Marie receives the nickname "robot" which is very appropriate since she has to learn how to smile to not be off-putting to those around her.
The three actresses portraying Marie, Lily Laight, Georgina Minter-Brown and Eleanor Wylde as the child, teen, and adult respectively were outstanding. Trying to play someone with no emotions is a difficult endeavor, and all three of them did an job with their mannerisms and facial expressions to denote the lack empathy.
If there's a weakness in the movie is when it introduces a certain secretive conspiracy aspect to the story. It almost feels like that should be a different movie set within the same universe despite the fact that it leads to the movie's conclusion.
In the end, FREQUENCIES is a romance movie in a science fiction concept. It's a movie that warrants repeat viewings if only to look for more details and to see the movie in a different light once everything is revealed.
Frequencies is available on iTunes for purchase and for rent now and in select theaters on Friday, May 23rd. https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/frequencies/id868679560
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