“Parallel” is a sci-fi film that touches upon the themes of multiverse and parallel universes. The story follows Vanessa, who is grieving the loss of her son and is unable to move on. She takes comfort in running off into the forest to find peace and tranquillity. Alex, her husband, is also grieving but believes in moving forward in life. He is finding it difficult to bring Vanessa around the idea. Martel, Alex’s brother, is helping out the family and is also trying his best to help Alex and Vanessa. On one such journey into the forest, Vanessa discovers a doppelganger and enters the wormhole of parallel universes.
This article contains spoilers.
Parallel (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
The film opens with Vanessa lost, looking at the forest from her window, when a bird suddenly hits the glass, scaring her. Vanessa is watching the dead bird, and her husband Alex joins her, saying that his mother used to say that dead birds meant the closing of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. She walks away, picks up a small box, and walks towards a room. She enters, places the box on the side table, and sees the empty feeling in the room.
Alex and Martel are brothers, and they are conversing. Vanessa asks them if they had heard a loud noise like an explosion coming from the forest. Martel says it might have been the lightning and thunder. Martel speaks about a facility that is shut in the forest, and people say weird experiments are going on. This information piques Vanessa’s interest, but Alex dismisses it.
He retorts, saying it was their father saying these things, and he had been reckless and disappeared one day. Vanessa decides to go into the forest as she wants some space. Martel gives her a rifle to fight off any wild animals and, without thinking, mentions Obe, and Vanessa gets triggered. Alex tries to calm her down, but she leaves, saying she needs space. Vanessa asks Alex if he had wished she was the one who died that night instead of Obe, and Alex is taken aback.
Vanessa reaches the forest and sits down to take in the calm when she hears a movement. Someone shoots at her, and she takes cover behind a tree. She shoots back and later realizes it is someone who looks like her. She starts to feel scared. Alex is worried as it has been two hours since Vanessa has been out in the forest. Luckily, she arrives in time, but she looks terrified. Alex tries to ask her what happened, and she lies, saying she saw a bear.
Alex reminds her what had happened was an accident, and he has forgiven her, and they need to move on. Vanessa begs him to leave, and she panics. She looks for her pills and takes them. Alex seeks comfort in Martel, who asks him to give Vanessa time as it has been only a year since they lost their son, and he needs to be patient with himself and her. Vanessa is watching a video on the TV, and Alex interrupts her, asking her to join them for dinner if she wants.
On her way to the backyard, she sees some physics formulas on the board. Alex is happy to see her join us for dinner. Martel tells them a story about when his dad had taken Alex and his fishing, and he almost drowned. He tells them that he started to look at life differently. Initially, he started to drink and then realized that no matter what, we humans aren’t in control of anything, and we are always where we need to be. Vanessa gets offended and gets up to leave. Martel tries to help but burns his hand.
Alex offers to clean up outside while Vanessa waits inside the house. She sees Martel pouring himself a glass of whiskey and confronts him asking if everything he was talking about outside was just bullshit. But then she notices the burn on his hand, and by the time she turns to the other direction, he is again walking towards her. Vanessa decides to go into the forest that night. She wants to test what she had seen the previous day.
Subsequently, she walks into a natural tree arch, ties her scarf around it, and marks the trees. Then, she walks around the forest and comes back to find the scarf and the markings missing. She repeats the process multiple times, only to be more confused each time. She gets back home and talks to Alex and explains how she had seen her doppelganger and how there are many other versions of the universe. He does not believe her but tells her she is becoming like his father and asks her to take her pills.
He also gets angry and says that he is dying of guilt as he was the one driving, because of which their son died. Vanessa says she was the one driving, but he thinks she has lost her mind. Vanessa goes quiet, not understanding what is going on. As Alex continues to yell, Martel walks in, and Vanessa notices that Martel has hurt his right hand, but there are bandages on his left hand. She runs away from them and walks into the forest.
She is trying to figure things out, and someone walks in the bushes, and she warns them saying she has a rifle. The man walks, raising his hands, and Vanessa notices it is Alex and asks him if he is following her. Alex says he isn’t following her and explains to Vanessa that he isn’t her Alex. He is Alex from a different universe. Alex convinces her to go with him and talk, and she agrees.
New Alex explains that there are just a few minor changes in each version of a person in every parallel universe and explains the multiverse theory. He shows her a diagram and explains that the place they are in is the origin, and there are four points within the squares where you can cross over. He tells her that he is a physicist. They ask each other how their partners in the other universe are and smile to themselves.
This is a divorced Alex, and Vanessa had gone into depression and had started coming into the forest and lost herself, but he hasn’t lost hope. He intends to find her. Divorced Alex says he had tried looking for Obe but never found him. They come up with a plan to reach their original spaces. They need more fishing wire. The idea is to tie one end of the fishing wire to the tree they are currently at.
Divorced Alex goes around tying the fishing net to every passage to the new world. Since they need more fishing wire, they decide to stop by one of the worlds. They find the fishing wire, but Martel finds them. He is crying and asks them to stop haunting him as he knows they aren’t real, and he has buried their bodies. He regrets driving and getting into an accident, considering Vanessa was eight months pregnant.
They hurriedly leave, wishing him luck, and they come up with a code word to say to each other when they see each other again. The code words are Room 1111, Bed 8. Divorced Alex tells his story about stumbling upon these worlds. He finds himself in a world of two Martels fighting each other, and after that, he has been lost. Vanessa tells her story about how she had shot her other version. Divorced Alex leaves, and before leaving, they kiss each other but stop themselves.
Divorced Alex gets back at dawn and tells her his idea. He had decided to blow up every entry into the other world so as not to go back there again. She wishes him luck and says she can’t replace his ex-wife, and he can’t replace her husband. That night, Vanessa is done waiting around and decides to follow the fishing wire path. She reaches her world and embraces Alex, but both Martel and Alex are confused. He attacks her, and they tie her up. Alex reveals that he has killed Vanessa, and he does not know who she is.
He is vehement and panicked and accidentally shoots himself. Vanessa runs away and hears Martel shooting himself. Divorced Alex arrives, and she realises that Alex had killed another Alex from a different world and had decided to take his place. In anger, Vanessa tells him that because he had pulled the plug on Obe, Vanessa had divorced him. Divorced Alex tells Vanessa that she will come through a difficult situation where she will have to make the same choice.
Parallel (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Can Vanessa find Obe in another universe?
He pulls the dead Alex inside the tree, and plants the dynamites. He asks her to leave. Vanessa is relaxing when another Vanessa points her rifle at her. They both tell each other that they know the multiverse theory. Vanessa realises that this is divorced Vanessa but she is terrified. She takes a stone before the other one fires at her and attacks. Then, Vanessa enters the world and takes a long nap.
She wakes up and finds a dead bird, and Alex says the same things that the other Alex said at the beginning of the film. They embrace each other. Martel and Alex tell her that she had slept for more than 13 hours and were worried. Vanessa seems to be smiling again. She takes a box and walks into a room to find toys and kid clothes, and she hears Obe screaming for Mom.
Vanessa, at the beginning of the film, finds it difficult to move on from the loss of her son and has ruined her relationship with her husband as well. Her stumbling upon a parallel universe and seeing different versions of the family helped her cope with her grief. She was also looking at herself, especially in the versions of Alex, when they were behaving exactly like she was with her Alex. This helped her appreciate what she was missing out on, but in the end, she found her Obe as well. Unlike other multiverse, parallel sci-fi films, they haven’t used any hi-fi technology to define the different worlds, which makes it more interesting. This film purely focuses on the inner turmoil and fears that one would feel if one were to find a different version of oneself.
