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One Couple, Infinite Breakups: Watch the Poignant Multiverse Love Story Possibilia

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Published on August 5, 2016

Possibilia love story multiverse breakup short film Daniels Alex Karpovsky

In Charlie Jane Anders’ “Six Months, Three Days,” the man who can see the future and the woman who can see multiple futures obsess over their predestined breakup half a year away. Possibilia, a short film described as “an interactive love story set in the multiverse… whatever that means,” tackles many of the same dilemmas about whether heartbreak is worse when you know it’s coming, as an ordinary couple plays out their breakup in infinite scenarios. And because it’s interactive, you can follow along with each distinct narrative thread. We would expect no less from Daniels, the directing duo who made an absurd film about a farting corpse into the surprisingly moving Swiss Army Man.

“What if you stayed?” Rick (Girls’ Alex Karpovsky) asks his girlfriend Pollie (The Mindy Project’s Zoe Jarman), setting off an existential argument about leaving and coming back and every possible permutation of how their relationship could go. As the six-minute short goes on, you have the option of clicking through almost a dozen different scenarios of Rick and Pollie crying, smashing photos, grappling, play-wrestling, and confronting each other with contradictory memories about how the best and worst parts of their relationship.

What’s especially cool is how the threads don’t stay parallel; no matter which track you end up on, you begin to see the alternate Ricks and Pollies inhabiting each other’s space, so that they have to step around these other couples, or so they can observe them with a fresh perspective. The mental gymnastics bring to mind Anders’ story, while the crowding and complicating presence of body doubles conjure up the similarly multiverse play Constellations.

Possibilia multiverse love story breakup body doubles Daniels

Possibilia multiverse love story breakup body doubles Daniels

Possibilia premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014, but it seems to have just appeared online. It launched on the interactive platform Eko, co-produced by Prettybird (more information on the film).

Watch Possibilia here, and make sure you click through the multiplying frames as much as possible. While the narrative extends through each of the scenarios, you’ll appreciate the different angles.

via Metafilter and Indiewire

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Natalie Zutter

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