Rating: NR | Runtime: 99 minutes
Director(s): Heather Ballish & Mia Moore Marchant
Writer(s): Mia Moore Marchant

I’m trying not to blink.

The scene that ushers us into the world of Mia Moore Marchant’s Again Again (co-directed with Heather Ballish) is one we’re used to seeing in time loop films. Aggie (Moore) is explaining what it’s been like to live the same day for almost ten years to her best friend and love Tessa (Aria Taylor) after already proving the veracity of this impossible phenomenon. They laugh. They cry. They brace for the inevitable when they wake up and only one remembers what happened.

It’s a moment that’s usually saved for the end of a time loop script by setting the stage for its imprisoned character to finally escape after having found peace with the scenario and learning whatever life lesson had kept them in stasis. As a result, we rarely get to experience what it means to reckon with the aftermath. The PTSD inherent to fearing being trapped again. The horror in realizing whatever happens next is permanent. Needing to remember you aren’t the sun.

For all the big emotions that prove unavoidable in a dynamic wherein two people are suddenly forced to confront the fact that they might not want the same things anymore since “yesterday” was a decade ago for one of them, it’s the small details that resonate most. Tessa’s pained looks when having no clue about a thing Aggie excitedly talks about like it’s common knowledge. Aggie’s panic when imagining innocuous situations ending in inevitably violent tragedy.

We’re watching two women in love suddenly coping with a fractured idea of what’s next. The plan was for Abbie and Tessa to run away in their RV and be happy removed from their hometown and its religious bigotry. Tessa’s mother didn’t like Abbie before she transitioned and likes her even less now, but it still took a lot for Tessa to fight back. So, what does she do now that Abbie says she wants to return because she’s been away too long?

It’s therefore a lot to process for them both. Yes, this is ultimately Abbie’s story wherein we only really ever interact with Tessa in tandem with her, but she’s been affected too considering the person she left with is no longer the person with her now. Tessa wants to understand and be there for Abbie, but she’s no longer any different than anyone else. Abbie has learned just as much about everyone in this town as she knew about Tessa. They just don’t recall meeting her at all.

Marchant conceived the film as a way to exorcise the demons of escaping life in quarantine during the initial wave of COVID. The strangeness of re-entering a world that looks the same yet has been very deeply changed. Priorities shifted, loved ones passed away, and a lot of problems faced by those living on the poverty line were exacerbated even further. And the threat of it happening again or becoming one of the dead continues to loom today.

So, we don’t get the happy and smiling people at the end of Groundhog Day once Abbie breaks free. We get Tessa’s pain from Abbie lashing out after spending so much time not having to worry about anyone else’s wellbeing beyond her own. We get Abbie’s torture from still caring for people like Naomi (Abigail Thorn) while only getting a blank stare back. We watch as these women are unmoored from reality and struggling to get back.

More than that, however, we also experience heavier emotions like betrayal. This Tessa doesn’t need to be told about Abbie’s exploits with other women inside the loop to know by the way she looks at them. Is her anger justified? Definitely. Is it deserved? Probably not. But the same goes for Abbie once new revelations tease that the time loop wasn’t random. It wasn’t intentional either, but it was created by someone. So, how does she reconcile that truth? Can she?

All the while Abbie and Tessa deal with this newfound tension separating them, Marchant and Ballish take us backwards to better understand how these women got to this point and whether they might find a way through it. Today is presented in a standard color 16:9. The loop is shown in 4:3 black and white with the number written on Abbie’s hand in marker revealing how many repeats she’s gone through. And pre-loop memories unfold via color widescreen.

Every glimpse into the past proves necessary for the events of the present. They teach us why the largest number on Abbie’s hand only adds up to around seven years despite them always saying ten. They introduce Tessa’s ex Jason (Jon Meggison). They reveal how the loop-affected romance shared by Abbie and Naomi is almost identical to the one Abbie kept alive with Tessa. They provide us hints for the origin of the whole’s science fiction conceit.

And they ensure that both Abbie and Tessa become three-dimensional women enduring a lifetime of stress and introspection in a single day that one didn’t think would come and the other assume would. The anger. The resentment. The love. The forgiveness. Some scenes can give you whiplash with how quickly the tone shifts from volatile to heartfelt, but there’s an honesty to it because these aren’t normal circumstances. They’re both treading new existential territory.

As such, the trans inclusion of it all is intrinsic to its success both as a showcase of trans characters simply existing in the world without it being the impetus (a coming out story) or conflict (enduring abuse) and an authentic portrait of the complexity inherent to trans romance. Is a trans woman like Naomi a better fit than a self-described straight woman like Tessa? These mirrors are intentional—like the dysmorphia of the world replacing that of the body.

Again Again has a lot to say within its uniquely fresh take on the time loop genre that ultimately touches on themes of nostalgia and anxiety when confronting the past, present, future, and impossible. Yes, its micro-budget crowdsourced production is unavoidably felt, but it never detracts from the messaging and humanity at its core. A shared experience in quarantine might bond us through fear, but our conversations within can still galvanize us through hope.

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Aria Taylor and Mia Moore Marchant in AGAIN AGAIN.