Comet movie review: orbital decay

by MaryAnn Johanson

There’s no difference between reality and dreams,” Dell (Justin Long: Veronica Mars) informs Kimberly (Emmy Rossum: Before I Disappear). That’s supposed to be romantic, maybe. Or else it’s a Clue to what’s really going on in Comet, a tedious dramedy from first-time writer-director Sam Esmail that jumps around several years of their relationship as they argue and debate who loves whom more. He’s a Sherlockian asshole who insults people for fun and figures he might be the smartest person on the planet; she’s a lovable kook with bad taste in men; together, they are even more annoying than they sound, and have nothing in the least bit memorable to share with us about relationships, love, sex, the meaning of life, or anything at all. Could the jumping around in time mean that Dell is merely dreaming his memories? Is he experiencing alternate universes in which his relationship with Kimberly is exactly the same as it is in every other parallel dimension? It’s like that Steven Wright joke about all his stuff getting stolen and replaced with exact duplicates: what difference does it make? Except here it’s not funny.