It’s still entertaining, just not worth thinking about too much. Does all this mean that Coherence is trying to pass itself off as smarter than it really is? Probably, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Em’s solution is just making the best of what has become a hopelessly irresolvable situation. The idea that there is an explanation or map to all of this is chimerical. If timelines are being randomly scrambled every time they go outside and into the darkness, then surely there’s no way to go home because home will always be something (somewhere, some time) different. Nor is there a logical way for Em (Emily Baldoni), or any of the other people present, to disentangle the mess they’re in. Why, for example, would a passing comet have this effect? No reason at all. But that needn’t bother us because I don’t think anything in the premise is supposed to make us think it is capable of being understood. Let’s face it, even if there were some mathematical explanation for what is going on here, none of these people would be able to understand it.

A book on physics with a note on coherence is consulted but explains nothing. We shouldn’t be too hard then on the group of boho friends who have gathered for a dinner party in Coherence, only to find that a passing comet has turned their reality into a plate of spaghetti. One of the worst examples is what’s been made of the uncertainty principle, which is often adopted as just meaning that all truth is relative and we can never really know anything. I’ve heard that it drives physicists crazy when they see what pop culture does with science.

Coherence 2013