By Robert Scucci
| Published 14 seconds ago
What do party drugs and time traveling have in common? If 2019’s Synchronic has anything to say about it, everything. There are conditions to consider, though, if you want to party responsibly, because time doesn’t necessarily work the way you think it does in this film and, for lack of better words, it’s a total trip. According to Synchronic’s internal logic, everything, everywhere, is happening all at once, but timing, location, and risk tolerance all come into play when a missing person is involved. The stakes are raised even further when we learn that the person who’s missing may not necessarily be found on the current timeline.
So if you’re ready to get wavy gravy and take the trip of a lifetime, Synchronic should be your next watch because it will absolutely take you places. Just make sure your pet doesn’t run away while you’re hopping timelines, or you’ll have some serious explaining to do.
Steve’s Odyssey
Synchronic centers on two paramedics named Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan). Steve is our protagonist, and he’s a man with nothing to lose. In practical terms, that means he’s a bachelor who lives alone and is far more willing to take risks. Dennis, by contrast, is the grounded one. His wife Tara (Katie Aselton) and daughter Brianna (Ally Loannides) keep him tethered to reality in a way Steve simply isn’t. Working out of New Orleans, the two begin to notice a string of bizarre deaths that all share one common thread: a new designer drug known as Synchronic is present at every scene.
When Steve is pricked by a used drug needle during one of his calls, he seeks medical attention to make sure he didn’t contract anything serious. Instead, his world is completely upended when he learns he has a brain tumor. Things get even stranger when doctors discover that his pineal gland is underdeveloped to the point where it resembles a child’s, a detail that becomes critically important as the story unfolds.
When Brianna suddenly goes missing, Steve and Dennis retrace her steps and find Synchronic at her last known location. Enraged and desperate for answers, Steve heads to a dispensary and buys up their entire supply of the drug so he could properly dispose of it. He’s soon followed home and confronted by the chemist who created it. As it turns out, the chemist has been trying to clear stores out as well, having realized that Synchronic causes younger users to travel through time by exploiting their underdeveloped pineal glands as a means of propulsion.
Steve, who figures he’s already living on borrowed time, begins taking the drug himself and documenting the results in the hope of tracking down Brianna and bringing her home to Dennis and Tara. Through trial and error, he learns that the precise location where he takes Synchronic determines which timeline he arrives in. Taking the drug in one spot, for example, sends him back to the ice age, while moving mere inches in another direction lands him inside earlier versions of the house he currently lives in. Armed with this knowledge but running low on Synchronic, Steve commits to one final journey in an effort to reunite Dennis with his daughter.
Location, Location, Location
Synchronic’s time hopping sequences work so well because we learn alongside Steve in real time. He records his trips on a video camera, and his realizations hit at the exact same moment they do for the viewer. The rules and logic are never spoon fed or overexplained. We’re simply allowed to watch the mechanics play out on screen. Steve’s sense that he has nothing left to lose only heightens the urgency, since he’s willing to take risks that most non terminally ill people wouldn’t even consider.
As Dennis continues to unravel over his missing daughter, Steve is tearing through timelines with reckless abandon. From Dennis’s perspective, who has no idea what’s actually happening, this creates exactly the kind of tension you’d expect before any meaningful payoff. When the two finally align with a shared goal, they understand what needs to be done, even if it means risking everything.
Synchronic works because its rules are simple enough to grasp, which allows the emotional arcs to do the heavy lifting. Steve may occasionally get lost in the weeds, but any lucid viewer can follow the time hopping without feeling like their brain is about to snap in half.
Synchronic is currently streaming for free on Tubi.