In Adam Sigal’s film Chariot, reincarnation is a system. “The system is mostly infallible” says Dr. Karn (John Malkovich). Presumably this is comforting? But then he says, “I have no idea who put it into place, or why.”
Wait, what?
In Sigal’s world, people live, they die, they live, they die, as Malkovich loosely explains it. But when one young man experiences a glitch—in the form of a woman he loved in a previous life, naturally—things go dramatically haywire.
Chariot also stars Thomas Mann, who was very good in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and was also in Skull Island and the live-action Lady and the Tramp. Rosa Salazar (Brand New Cherry Flavor) is the mysterious girl from the past; Shane West (Nikita) gets the dubious honor of having Malkovich ask him, “Tell me, do you enjoy existing?”
Does he? Hard to say if anyone in this trailer is enjoying much of anything. There’s a hotel for unusual people, a floating person, people in some kind of Alien-meets-plague-doctor masks, and a constant sense of existential threat: Malkovich makes reincarnation seem like something that’s done to you, rather than something you experience somewhat naturally.
Adam Sigal has directed two previous films, including 2019’s Stakeout, and written several more, including the early Aaron Paul movie Daydreamer, which also seems to involve a young man in an existential crisis related to a beautiful woman.
Chariot is in theaters and on demand April 15th.
Buy the Book
Until the Last of Me
