Perfect cast and a good story

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This movie is pretty savvy to say the least. It's also one of those cases where it merits more than one viewing to fully understand and appreciate what is going on. While the front is a romantic comedy with a Science Fiction touch, the Sci-Fi part is actually a lot bigger than you may think at first. Or maybe you thought about it or read about it already, but whatever the case, experiencing this movie, is a blast to say the least.We have more time-lines and more jumps than some people will be able to handle or even want to handle. There's a point where things can seem to be too much. And after a couple of twists you may find yourself going "come on". But if you are like me and those other people who loved this, you'll actually be craving for more ... which is something the director is hinting at towards the end ... visually but also in his commentary!

Writer-Director Darren Paul Fischer's film 'Frequencies' is quite ambitious in nature, not by its budget, but by the number of intriguing themes it explores and way it makes us contemplate on them. The experimental film combines the themes of science fiction and romance to deal with profound philosophical questions.The movie is set in a world where people are born with predetermined frequencies, which signifies one's luck and the rate of success in life. Nature favours high-frequencied people, and when a high born meets a low born, some reaction or disturbance occurs to stop this. So, many people try to understand the workings of nature and try finding ways which can alter the effect of such laws. This kind of concept doesn't need a big budget, special effects and such, to explore. A riveting story with proper elements can easily do the trick, and that's what Fischer does here.Identity, luck, success, destiny, choice and accidental discovery are just the superficial themes of the film. The underlying themes and questions make the film much more fascinating. Like, one of the main ideas it touches is partial knowledge/information. In the film's story, characters determine solutions to their problems and workings of nature with the help of knowledge (partial or specific) they have regarding the subject, and with each new discovery of information, the understanding, and thus the solution keeps changing. In the same way, in the three segments of the film, we ourselves see how the revelation of new information makes us see the same scene in a different light. In that regard, the film and its philosophy combine to give us an elegant and artistic puzzle.The casting is good, especially the cute younger versions of the characters. Sometimes, the dialogues seem a bit too expository and there are moments which remind us of the film's low budget, but the underlying philosophical questions keep us engaged enough not to be bothered by such trivial shortcomings. The brilliant cinematography and effective editing also play an important part to make the film tight and gripping. Like, even the varying colour tones of the scenes (red being low frequency, and purple being high) have meaning, and look beautiful in the storytelling process.There is no question regarding the movie's intellect and scope, but a little more heart and soul would have made it perfect. A little more character depth would have helped as well. But that being said, its themes have been handled well, and for a runtime of 105 minutes, it maintains the right pace and dares to shower us with a bunch of thought-provoking ideas.

Recommended to me as interesting, intelligent movie. I watched it twice. At first, I wasn't impressed, but it looked OK. As I fell asleep for 10-15 minutes somewhere in the middle, I decided to give it another try. Especially after reading praising reviews here which made me think I probably lost track with the story during these missing 10-15 minutes, or something crucial to understand the concept. Unfortunately, after a second chance, it was even bigger disappointment. Movie starts promising, in pretty ordinary, casual setting. A young girl and a boy got introduced after some unknown important test where both scored extreme yet opposite results. Then, strong reactions happen upon their contacts, followed by weird events, so they cannot stay close to each other more than 1 minute. Fairly interesting indeed. Also, camera work is really good and quite artistic. Unfortunately, that's all about it. Slowly, movie takes confused and dull rather than interesting route.Frequencies suffers from style-over-substance and trying-so-hard syndromes. There is just too much of everything. When it tries as romance movie, it fails because of general mechanic flow and "scientific" coldness. "The higher the frequency, the lower the empathy" - as main female character was described could explain that, but however, it's no excuse. Flat, emotionless movies are not good no matter the genre and lack of any sentimentality in drama and especially romance is just a failure.Then, it tries at social commentary, with very poor results. Standard concepts of social control and mental manipulation, perhaps the social effect of modern technologies are perpetuated... but in so superficial and obnoxious manner. Basically, a social commentary just for the sake of it. Also, since government agents or whatever got introduced in the story, the movie really drags in unneeded nonsense and becomes difficult to follow.Self-help and (anti) psychiatry themes are covered. For instance, the negative frequency of main guy "not in sync with nature" and main girl's way too high one which prevents her to "feel" can also imply mental disabilities like autism. The problem however is lack of transparency in these subjects, as it never goes beyond simple implications. Seems that atmosphere was clearly set at inoffensive and "positive", to prevent cool and "smart" tone of the movie. Possible mental disabilities got masked, characters typically presented as "genius". Minor scenes which imply autism by displaying repetitive behavior still stay neutral, in a way of some "cool" screen shots. A scene where the couple was prescribed with "dose of Mozart and Brahms" is just so damn namby-pamby and downright stupid. Even most characters were named by gifted scientists or composers (Newton, Tesla, Strauss etc.) for totally unclear and bizarre reason. Red flag for pretentiousness risen! Oh, and that notorious aspect, the flirt with (cough!) existential philosophy. Without doubt, this is where Frequencies is at the most pretentious and where it failed to lowest. Philosophical phrases are extensively used throughout entire movie, in most laconic way imaginable. Such desperate desire to appear so intellectual is just annoying. So, philosophical catch-phrases are constantly thrown everywhere, but in fact, the initial idea of the whole movie hardly have some(if any)depth. The premise goes literally like this: there are people who emotionally cannot get together(because of their extremely opposite "frequencies"), they are not "destined" to be (add there many boring contemplations about fate, shown in the movie), some words can change that (certain tones may change "frequencies"), but these words can be also used as a tool to manipulate and control others, while certain music (like Mozart, doh!)is antidote (it brings all humans at the the same "frequency") and can unify whole mankind on subconscious level (add there that inane social commentary part)… It's perhaps interesting, but no need for some extra intelligence to realize how naïve and flawed this "theory" is. However, this "theory" is not the issue, but lack of content around that idea in the movie.At this point, Frequencies enters New-Ageisms (Scientology?) and perhaps cyber occultism? Like a magic formulas, some meaningless words are used to manipulate people and get them instantly act. There are digital devices who generate these "magic" words. Meh, come on! The way these ideas got executed in the plot is absolutely lazy, random and stupid. Good science fiction IS based on science, but this is just childish "futuristic" fiction. There is even some device with video transmission of future events, another idea thrown in the plot for no actual reason? Oh, my… On top of all, the most horrid side are tendencies at artistic and even avant-garde. There's numerous flaws in plot, atmosphere and even acting, yet whole package fools out with faux "unconventionality". Frequencies pretends to be intelligent, but ends as mumbo jumbo. It tries as artistic movie, but ends as arty-farty one. It's often suggested as atmospheric, "visual" movie. Well, camera is classy, but it's still far from good atmospheric movie. Lynch's Eraserhead or Tarkovsky's Stalker are examples of atmospheric masterpieces - where actual story was secondary, moving at very slow pace, while visual side was primary. That sometimes seems to be the case with Frequencies. It's visually strong but only in technical terms, because unlike these two movies it cannot express anything emotional or captivating. While it's story is not that buried, it also moves in much faster pace. But, clocking at 100 minutes, Frequencies looks long-winded, like there is about 30 minutes more than needed.So finally, the movie just died under all that mess. Near the end, I simply started to ask - what's the damn point of all this? Seems that directors were also aware that it got lost along the way. Even the closing scene with two main characters clearly ends in that fashion. Frequencies is nothing but superficial effort to be extraordinary, original, smart, artistic. Result is pretentious and faceless movie. It's blueprint of all wrong in modern art - made out of boredom, with desire to impress but nothing to express.

The first thing I thought when I started to watch this movie is how it strongly reminded me of another awesome movie called Upside Down so if you like this one you should definitely check out Upside Down. The main reason I gave this movie a 10/10 is because it deals with almost all the philosophical questions I've had in my life and the best part is, it confirms all my viewpoints about fate, destiny, predetermination, luck etc. This is the type of movie that will become a popular reference in the future like the movie Idiocracy did, where people are now pointing out that our society is heading in the same direction just like it was portrayed in Idiocracy. Call me an idiot but I honestly believe that in the far future this movie will be treated like a documentary and will serve as an example of how our ancestors were on the right path of figuring out the nature of the universe. Unlike the other "intelligent" movies like Enemy, Predestination, Pi etc. where I had trouble to keep up with the story and had to watch it a few times along with those "explained" videos on Youtube, this movie is easy to follow with the only hard part being the end where they explain Theo's story. This movie is gold.