Director Jared Moshé's Aporia recently held its world premiere at the 2023 Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal. Two screenings were held on July 27 and 28. Following those screenings, the film debuted on Rotten Tomatoes to rave reviews, earning a 100% score from 19 reviews.
The film opens wide across select U.S. theaters on August 11.
Aporia stars Greer (Ant-Man, Halloween Kills), Edi Gathegi (X-Men: First Class, The Harder They Fall), Payman Maadi (A Separation), and Faithe Herman (Shazam!).
Below, you can check out a few excerpts from reviews to get an idea of the critical consensus.
"Will reward viewers seeking a thoughtful exploration of imaginative themes that usually come adorned in showier bells and whistles." - Variety
"It is elegant and spare. It feels fresh. ... The panic of parenthood, those awful mistakes that cannot be unmade, are well considered here in the package of a whip-smart genre film." - Screen Anarchy
"High-concept and heartfelt." - The Hollywood Reporter
In addition to directing, Moshé (The Ballad of Lefty Brown) also wrote the script. Speaking to Deadline, he previously described the film as, "a genre-bending, time travel film that never goes back in time."
The film sees Sophie (Greer), struggling to cope with the loss of her husband Mal (Gathegi), and raising their daughter as a single-parent, following a drunk driving accident. Many years after the accident, Sophie discovers that Mal was working on a time machine with his best friend (Maadi). However, it's not a traditional time machine as the device doesn't allow people to go back in time, only a single bullet.
Sophie makes the choice to use this power to save Mal but saving him has terrible, unforeseen consequences.
Aporia Official Synopsis: Since losing her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi) in a drunk-driving incident, Sophie (Judy Greer) has struggled to manage crippling grief, a full-time job, and the demands of parenting her devastated teenage daughter (Faithe Herman). When her husband's best friend Jabir (Payman Maadi), a former physicist, reveals that he has been building a time-bending machine that could restore her former life, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice--and unforeseeable consequences.