Spoilers ahead for "Coherence."

There are movies often cited as being confusing or mind-melting, like "Inception" or "Memento," which really aren't that complicated. Then there's something like "Primer," which requires detailed diagrams and hours-long YouTube explainers to begin to unravel its web of twists and turns. Sitting happily in the middle is James Ward Byrkit's "Coherence," one of the best sci-fi films of the past decade and a movie that is complex and mild-melting yet not so complex that it's hard to follow.

The film begins with an alluring premise of four couples meeting at a friend's house for dinner on the night a comet is passing by the Earth. While they all have messy relationships to navigate, the comet causes quantum decoherence, creating split realities and allowing the guests' alternate selves to intrude into their reality, and vice-versa. It's a concept that allows for plenty of twists while also allowing for simplicity,...