Redux Redux

The Architecture of Infinite Grief

To discuss the multiverse in modern cinema is usually to discuss "scale"—the exhaustion of stakes that escalate until they encompass all of existence. But in *Redux Redux*, directors Kevin and Matthew McManus (best known for the atmospheric *The Block Island Sound*) have done something radically different. They have taken the concept of infinite possibility and collapsed it into a claustrophobic, singular prison. This is not a film about saving a timeline; it is a film about the terrifying comfort of stagnation. It is a multiverse story that smells less like ozone and sterile laboratories, and more like stale diner coffee and burnt gunpowder.

The premise is deceptively pulp: Irene (a ferocious Michaela McManus) travels between dimensions to hunt down Neville (Jeremy Holm), the man who murdered her daughter. But we are not witnessing a hero’s journey; we are witnessing an addict’s relapse. Irene has killed Neville hundreds of times. She has stabbed him, shot him, and burned him, yet the catharsis never sticks. The McManus brothers frame this repetition not as a cool sci-fi loop, but as a grueling, blue-collar shift. The visual language of the film enforces this drudgery; the cinematography bypasses the glossy sheen of high-concept sci-fi for a gritty, lo-fi aesthetic. The universes Irene visits are not fantastical wonderlands—they are depressingly mundane variations of the same peeling wallpaper, the same lonely motels, and the same greasy spoon diners.



This grounded approach is where the film finds its teeth. By stripping away the spectacle, the directors force us to look at the ugly machinery of grief. One particularly haunting sequence serves as a montage of assassination—a grim catalog of Neville’s deaths that plays out with the mechanical efficiency of a factory line. It is here that the film’s central tragedy is laid bare: Irene isn’t looking for a world where her daughter is alive anymore. She is looking for the next "hit" of vengeance. The violence is shocking, yes, but it is the *boredom* in Irene’s eyes that truly disturbs. She has hollowed herself out, replacing her humanity with a single, repetitive function.

The narrative rhythm is disrupted by the arrival of Mia (Stella Marcus), a survivor who forces Irene to pause the conveyor belt of slaughter. Their dynamic adds a necessary friction to the story, acting as a mirror that reflects Irene’s monstrosity back at her. The performances here are critical; Michaela McManus operates at a simmering level of rage that is exhausting to watch in the best possible way, while Jeremy Holm manages to be both a terrified victim and a latent monster in his various iterations.



Technically, the film punches well above its weight class. The sound design deserves special mention—the hum of the interdimensional travel device sounds organic and threatening, like a dying animal, rather than a synthesized warp drive. The opening scene alone, a juxtaposition of bullet-riddled chaos and the quiet, crackling intimacy of a fire, sets a tone of beautiful destruction that the rest of the runtime works hard to maintain.

Ultimately, *Redux Redux* is a parable about the inability to let go. In a cinematic landscape obsessed with "what if," this film dares to ask "what now?" It suggests that the most dangerous place in the multiverse isn't a world ruled by conquerors, but a world where we refuse to accept our loss. It is a sharp, bruising piece of cinema that argues that sometimes, the only way to move forward is to stop trying to fix the past.