Another

A little way into Andy Chen’s 2026 Frightfest contribution, we see its heroine, Jo (India de Beaufort) at a party associated with her husband’s work. Whilst he’s socialising and networking elsewhere, she has been cornered by two physicists whose initially respectful treatment of her collapses when they establish that she makes her living writing fantasy books. “So it’s just magic?” they ask in a disparaging tone as she tries to explain that it’s really about the characters and what people are prepared to sacrifice for the things that matter to them.

On the way home, she and Ben (Bob Morley) argue about it. Predictably enough, it’s this that leads to the crash that claims his life.

All this takes place in flashback. When we meet Jo in the present, she’s still deeply affected by grief, but she’s past the stage where she can think only of one thing, or not think at all, and would be a cumbersome protagonist. She’s still getting freaked out by odd noises in the night, and being sympathetically offered extensions by an agent whom she half wishes would let her drop out entirely, but she’s basically functional, or so she thinks.

Then, one day, she wakes up and finds Ben casually frying eggs in the kitchen.

It won’t take viewers long to figure out that there’s a multiverse-related plot going on here, and that the amiable Ben is a more active participant in the story than he pretends to be, but what’s interesting about Chen’s story is that he continues after getting to this point. Past the stage where we get an acknowledgement of the sufficiently advanced technology which might otherwise be dismissed as magic, what emerges is a film which is really more concerned with its characters and what they are prepared to sacrifice – for better or worse.

It’s an unusual piece of cinema which slips between genres with impressive agility. After the thriller-style opening, we move on to science fiction, subsequently encountering fantasy horror elements in Jo’s confused dreams as she tries to make sense of her situation. There’s a delicate romance as she and Ben try to come to terms with their altered circumstances. Could they really have another chance? This is where we see the most impressive work from the two highly capable leads, but it is not the whole of the story, as a subsequent twist carries us into Gothic territory, and the notion of sacrifice becomes more challenging than either anticipated.

The challenge that the film faces is that based on its synopsis, one would never guess at these depths. It looks like just another in a long line of tales about technology expanding our horizons but leading to regret. One hopes that the Frightfest launch will result in good review and word of mouth, because there’s definitely a wider audience out there that would enjoy it. It’s a clever piece of work which also, more importantly, exhibits emotional intelligence.

Reviewed on: 28 Aug 2026