FANTASIA 2023: ‘Aporia’ Channels Grief Through Sci-Fi

Genre films are fantastically equipped with unpacking the layers of grief. Aporia (2023) uses time travel to explore the acceptance of life without someone you love, as you try to move heaven and earth to see them again. Written and directed by Jared Moshe, this science-fiction time-traveling exploration of relationships and the grief that come with them stars Judy Greer, Edi Gathegi, Payman Maadi, and Faithe Herman.

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). Watching her daughter wilt in front of her, shrinking under the weight of her grief, Sophie needs a way to fix things. That’s when her husband’s best friend Jabir (Payman Maadi), a former physicist, reveals a path that may give her just that. Driven by his own grief from losing his family, Jabir has been building a time-bending machine that could restore her former life. With Sophie as an impetus to put it to use, the duo finds themselves confronted with choices that cause ripple effects that become more and more dire.

At its core,  Aporia (2023) uses science fiction as a way to process grief. As Sophie moves through the world she’s crafting to fix her family, there is a barometer for what changes she can abide by. Little things adjust over time, small things at first, until whole sections of life are erased. By maintaining the memories of their original timeline, Sophie and Jabir are newcomers to the changed world with no memories of what has happened there. Is killing the man who killed your husband worth the ripples that come from it?

 Aporia (2023) is a snowball of a film, moving and piling the mistakes together until the impact causes the film’s most emotional moment. That said, its pacing is the one element that holds it back. With one too many timestream changes, the length of the film feels longer than it is, and the extended nature of feeling the consequences makes the emotional impact lose its momentum when it finally connects. This doesn’t mean that the film is bad, but it does mean that’s is easy to find yourself lost in the timeline adjustments, losing the purpose of making them in the first place.

However, the performances in  Aporia (2023) are strong in every way. While Jabir and Mal are standout supporting characters with depth that works, it’s Sophie who cements the film’s premise and pain. Judy Greer’s performance is the strongest part of Aporia, and that’s because she makes you feel her pain, her loss, and her desperation. Sophie doesn’t want to learn to live with grief. Hell, she doesn’t even want to heal from it. She wants it to end and become a faint memory that never happened. But try as she may, she feels that loneliness with every iteration of the timeline, the fear of losing the one she loves again and again. Time travel doesn’t heal her wounds. It just makes fresh ones.

Aporia’s message is a clear one. Accept grief and the loneliness that comes with it, but don’t let it overshadow the life that you have left or the people you have left. It’s a statement that hits, and if only it was reached about 20 minutes faster, Aporia would be a near-perfect exploration.

 Aporia (2023) screened as a part of the Fantasia International Film Festival 2023.