SXSW 2025 Review: “Redux Redux” – Madness in the Multiverse!
Starting at the beginning of a story is a way to ease audiences into a film’s setting and characters in a way they are accustomed to experiencing. Even beginning at the end with flashbacks is a method of storytelling that is easy to process. Redux Redux decides to disorient its audience from the start, beginning in the middle of Irene Kelly’s (Michaela McManus) nightmare. Irene’s daughter was killed and she can not cope. In fact, she uses a multiverse traveler to murder her daughter’s killer in every timeline she can. Redux Redux is a film about revenge and acceptance that keeps its audience locked in even if it gets a little lost along the way.
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The McManus brothers have developed a moment in time film that balances its ability to catch the audience up with what they missed while moving forward throughout. It does not utilize flashbacks to show Irene’s past but is able to fuse what she has been through in her dialogue with other characters, including a victim of the same man who killed her daughter (Stella Marcus).
It maintains its quickly paced story without feeling like it has to stop for explanation. It maintains its own atmosphere and sets sail in a way that expands on overdone multiverse elements making it feel new. As a result, Redux Redux’s script hits a high note in its skillful tactics.
In the way the film shows Irene’s desire to seek revenge on her daughter’s killer, the film plays a lot more into grief and sadness rather than the anger of a broken woman. Irene must learn to live in the reality she’s a part of rather than seeking one in the past. She attempts to find a multiverse where her daughter is still alive because she isn’t sure how to live in a world where she is gone.
Redux Redux unfolds in a way that reminds the audience that grief needs to be dealt with in the present and how it can be solved in the future rather than trying to seek a life that the past gave us. Redux Redux may not be as strong and analytical as it tries to be with its themes but it is a worthwhile watch to add to the genre.
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