Love is a frustrating thing. At times elusive, at others overwhelming, it can create both blissful harmony and perplexing paradoxes. Some deny it even exists.
"I believe all relationships eventually deteriorate into hate and indifference," says Dell (Justin Long), the protagonist of the offbeat romance Comet. He makes this remark within minutes of meeting Kimberly (Emmy Rossum), the love of his life. Dell is a young scientist and totally convinced that the attraction between boys and girls is just hormonal, no more.
Considering this mechanistic view of human relations, it is remarkable what risks he takes to hook up with Kimberly, a total stranger. Dell asks for her phone number while they are queuing for a mysterious comet shower event (in a cemetery). The risky part is that she is with a date, the handsome Josh (Eric Winter) who is not at all pleased to see a rival on the scene. But despite the odds against him, Dell insists on making his pitch.
Since Sam Esmail's film is a fairytale romance, the improbable happens and Kimberly is won over by Dell's chutzpah and razor-sharp intelligence. She ditches her date and runs off with him. She should perhaps have stayed with her good-looking simpleton, for Dell turns out to be incredibly hard work: brutally direct, miserable, self-obsessed and lacking empathy. For her part, Kimberly has a much less fraught emotional life.
Comet cleverly uses the methods of anatomical investigation to dissect what happens when two such dissimilar people fall in love. Film-maker Sam Esmail splices together crucial scenes from Dell and Kimberly's six-year on-off relationship and pores over them to find a diagnosis. By ignoring chronology and cutting the scenes together seemingly arbitrarily, Esmail creates an uncanny sense of concurrence, exposing the fissures in their relationship.
Thus Comet lays bare the appalling randomness of love and how it can fuse incompatible partners together. The vegetarian argues with the meat-eater, the friend of Bach with the pop music aficionado, the slob with the clean freak.
Worse still are cases in which there is everyday compatibility, but disagreement on the larger picture. Kimberly and Dell belong in this second category. While it turns out that their different emotional natures fit together well, there is one vital flaw: she wants children and he does not. As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that despite loving each other these two can't actually be together.
And time is ticking. "Beware of girls from whom you have stolen their twenties," remarks Kimberly ominously. As past, present and future are juxtaposed, one comes to understand that Dell's intellect, which initially won Kimberly over, later corrodes their partnership.
He ducks behind his wordy cynicism to deflect the responsibility that comes with growing up. That the film gives him a second chance and (possibly) even a third makes it pretty fantastical. In real life, the Dells of this world sooner or later get jilted and dispatched.
To be fair, Sam Esmail plays with open cards, painting his images in surreal pastel colours and setting it in what he calls a "separate universe". So while some of the story's twists are about as likely as being hit by a comet, the ride is enjoyable, a journey into the complex galaxy of mutual attraction.
When and where
Comet is being released gradually across Europe
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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