Watch One and the Same (2021) online

Very interesting concept that was vaguely explored, resulting in a poor execution, but the story still kept my interest. This concept is hard to thoroughly explore because you have to be able to coherently piece it all together at the end with a central idea. It is a valiant attempt at trying to venture new concepts.

I don't want to write a long winded review but this movie had a lot going on and still manage to be an intriguing watch. In general, I'm kind of picky about choosing anything with drama because I hate seeing stupid people make stupid decisions and wallow in pity because they cause of self inflicted pain. That trope is still prevalent in this movie, but not entirely unrealistic. I think it was overly ambitious that couldn't fulfill all the aspects of the story, but still a commendable attempt.

Now to the nitty gritty about why this film has a great basis but fails to deliver. Scientifically, energy transference makes complete sense and can hold up well for the most part, but the main problem is they barely scratch the surface of information. In order to understand this concept to the fullest the explanation needs to be fleshed out to make a cohesive story about how this energy flows in life, whether it follows a pattern or not. Without that explanation, most of the actions throughout seem too coincidental, and come off as lazy writing. The idea of energy coming back and being identified through humans electromagnetic field is a good concept to explore and can serve as a logical reason as to why we encounter certain people throughout our lifetime. It seemed like they would make this a mind blowing experience, but the company that specializes in this area, in the film, could offer little to no answers and had minimal involvement in assisting the story line other than saying a supernatural phenomenon is happening.

In terms of the script and acting I was pretty lenient considering these were all unknown actors and tbh they did an alright job. They showed some corny moments but also some glimmers of impactful and emotional acting. I will say in some moments the script didn't help them. Some of the dialogue was corny no doubt. But then you would hear some interactions that sounded corny, but were very realistic to real conversations and the writing almost felt socially self aware of how conversations actually would go. However, neither of these properties overwhelming hurt or helped the project enough to have a definitive position in likability.

The character development is so far left weird it's hard to understand what they're going for. The main girl is an angsty civil activist/protestor who is a straight up bitch most of the time, yet there were definitely moments that I liked her, but for no reason at all really. Granted once you find out more info towards the end I guess it is plausible to have these 2 contrasting personalities based on their reasoning, but still, they kinda just throw stuff at you and just want you to take it as so.

Now the antagonist.. whew boy.. he'll make your blood boil from start to finish and for what reason? I really don't know but he does the job he needs to by making you loathe him. I do wish there was more introspective work or development on his character specifically, but I'm not upset because I get the gist. Aside from the 2 main leads, I actually enjoyed every character on screen. Some were quirky, some witty, and mostly endearing. They were also partially irrelevant and were present more so for emotional impact which still hits in some aspects.

Even as I list out the Pros and Cons for this this movie I still feel mixed about how I feel. On one hand this is an admirable effort and on the other it is a poorly executed idea that bit off more than it can chew. A part of me wants to give it a 7 stars and the other part wants me to give it a 5 stars. Regardless, this movie will probably reside in my thoughts way longer than I was expecting to, so I guess at least it's thought provoking???