The Darkest Universe

(Will Sharpe & Tom Kingsley/2016/UK)

A slightly weird, and at times unsettling, film that follows a man called Zach as he attempts to make sense of his mentally unwell sister and her boyfriend’s disappearance on a canal boat. His frustration and impatience with the police investigation leads him to direct his energies into an online campaign. It becomes all consuming to the detriment of his personal and work life. At the same time, through flashbacks, the characters of his sister, Alice and her boyfriend, Toby and the build up to their going missing is shown. As Zach begins to experience a breakdown and falls further into a black hole of video blogs and clue hunting the metaphor of a black hole reflects a lot of what is going on. Their boat was last seen going into a canal tunnel, Alice’s disappearance leaves an emotional void in his life and one of Toby’s hand drawn comics depicts aliens consumed by a black vortex. It becomes apparent that rather than being seriously mentally ill, his sister might just be a socially awkward, introverted girl who finds a perfect match in the equally awkward and nerdy Toby. The idea that they have run away to escape the pressure, mainly exerted by Zach, to engage in society “normally” becomes viable. This realization pushes Zach’s breakdown to its limit and a swell of memories brings a catharsis. The Darkest Universe’s slowly evolving black humour shows how traumatic events in the past can have such long reaching effects, quietly buried, not far from the surface and waiting to be uncovered. It also to a lesser extent queries the, oft times false, hope of social media campaigns and depicts the compulsion to help as a mental condition in itself. Although the humour in the film pokes fun at Zach his breakdown is not mocked and provides the pathos which lifts this movie from quirky comedy to affecting drama. It’s very well put together. The mystery of Alice and Toby is the focal point about which Zach loses and discovers himself and although there are no concrete answers given for their disappearance my hunch is that the very first suggestion, given by the police, is the right one. They simply don’t want to be found in this darkest of universes.

(3.5/5)