The post-apocalyptic world is always a good way of adding instant drama to your film. The lack of resources, the unknown reason for the destruction, and the slow reveal which carries a strong message relating to a topic that the gathered audience can digest in their own time, are all great plot-points if they are done well.
After watching Diverge, you can tell that director James Morrison understands these things, but fails to apply them in the most effective manner.
The plot of Diverge is a strange combination of 12 Monkeys and Primer, with more emphasis on the former rather than the latter. The protagonist, Chris Towne (Ivan Sandomire,) is one of the few people still surviving in an infected hellscape after the death of his wife and child to a virus, until one day he wakes up and finds himself back in a time before the world ended. Once there, he is given a choice; take up his life where he left off by killing someone, or return to his own time.
It’s a real shame that, despite the intriguing premise and a fairly promising start, the actual story is rather dull. The actors don’t particularly emote, instead opting for a hollow stare for the majority of the movie, and the dialogue coming from their mouths feels stilted. This isn’t entirely their fault, the characters themselves appear two dimensional, with very few aspects of their lives fleshed out beyond their connection to the protagonist, and even then, that’s often done pretty thinly.
Another problem with the film is the colour correction. The overall tone of the film has been desaturated to the point where the characters are only a faintly different shade of colour from the background. This makes sense for the mise-en-scene in the beginning, when everything is a barren wasteland, but doesn’t make any tonal sense when Towne goes back in time and we get to see him interacting with his family.
Despite the overall negativity within this article, the cinematography in the beginning of the film is rather hauntingly beautiful. The wide-angle shots of a desolate wilderness along with destroyed cities in the distance sets a chilling and depressing tone for the film, albeit, one which doesn’t quite follow through for the rest of the film. Of course, even the empty vistas become somewhat tiresome after the third or fourth time they are shown as the characters wake up each morning.
In the end, Diverge and Morrison show an incredible amount of potential. Whilst it’s hard to ignore the film’s plodding dialogue and plot, there are glimpses of the diamond hiding beneath the rough. Given a little bit of time and polish, I have few doubts that we will be seeing some truly stellar work from him in the future. As for now, this film will happily take up an hour and a half of your time if you’re looking for something to do during a rainy day or cold winter’s evening. Just don’t go expecting the the next Citizen Kane.
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