Coherence Movie (2013); The Night Reality Split and What It Might Be Telling Us

Multiverse Monday

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that doesn’t rely on explosions or massive production to leave an impact. It just quietly gets under your skin and stays there.

Coherence is one of those movies.

The entire story takes place during a dinner party. Eight friends, one house, casual conversation, and a comet passing overhead. It feels normal at first. Comfortable. The kind of night we’ve all experienced in some version of our lives.

But then small things start to break that sense of normal.

A phone screen cracks for no reason. The power flickers. A strange house appears down the street that looks exactly like theirs. And when a few of them walk outside to investigate, they come back not entirely sure they returned to the same place they left.

What unfolds is a slow unraveling of reality itself.

The movie explores a simple but unsettling idea. What if multiple versions of the same night were happening at once, and under the right conditions, those realities could overlap? What if every choice created a different version of events, and for a brief moment, all of them became accessible?

That’s exactly why this fits perfectly into Multiverse Monday.

Because at its core, this isn’t just a story about a strange night. It’s about the possibility that reality isn’t as fixed as it feels. That there may be multiple versions of events unfolding at the same time. And that under certain conditions, those layers might get a little too close to each other.

And in the movie, that condition is a comet.

The Comet Story… and What’s Actually Real

Early in the film, one of the characters talks about a comet passing over in 1923 that caused strange, unexplainable behavior. People acting differently. Reality feeling distorted. Events that didn’t quite make sense.

It’s a small detail, but it sets the tone for everything that follows.

The interesting part is that while a comet did pass around that time, there’s no real evidence that it caused anything like what the movie suggests. That piece of the story is fictional.

But it doesn’t feel completely made up either.

Because when you look at history, comets have been tied to events that feel just as strange, just in different ways.

Take the 1910 return of Halley's Comet. Scientists discovered that its tail contained a toxic gas, and the idea spread quickly that Earth might pass through it. That was enough to spark global panic. People bought gas masks, sealed their homes, and prepared for something unknown coming from the sky.

Nothing physically happened, but perception shifted. Behavior shifted. A celestial event changed how people experienced reality, even if only for a moment.

And then there’s something even more fascinating. Comets carry complex organic molecules, including amino acids, the building blocks of life. Some scientists believe comets may have helped seed early Earth with the ingredients needed for life to begin.

So in a way, comets haven’t just passed by our world.

They may have helped create it.

The Story They Tell… and Where It Really Comes From

In the movie, that 1923 story includes something very specific. A blast over Siberia that flattened a massive area, yet resulted in very few deaths.

It sounds almost too detailed to be random.

And that’s because it isn’t.

What the film is quietly pulling from is the Tunguska Event.

In 1908, something exploded in the sky over a remote region of Siberia, flattening an estimated 80 million trees across hundreds of square miles. The force was enormous, yet there was no crater. Just a shockwave from above that reshaped the landscape in seconds.

Because of how remote the area was, there were very few confirmed human casualties, which only adds to how surreal the event feels even today.

The leading explanation is that a fragment of a comet or asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere and detonated mid air.

So what the movie does is take that real event and shift it slightly.

It moves it to 1923. It ties it directly to a passing comet. And then it adds something else on top of it. Not just a physical explosion, but something affecting perception, behavior… maybe even reality itself.

It’s not random fiction.

It’s reality, just… reimagined.

When Reality Doesn’t Collapse… It Multiplies

The film introduces the idea of Schrödinger's Cat, and this is where things start to feel less like fiction and more like a thought experiment.

Instead of one outcome, there are many. Instead of a single path, there are branches.

In the movie, the house becomes the anchor point. Inside, things feel somewhat stable. But outside, it’s as if every possible version of that night is unfolding at the same time.

Every choice creates another version and every decision opens another path. For a brief moment, those paths seem to overlap.

That’s why when people leave the house, they don’t always come back to the same version of reality. They step into one that’s just slightly different. A different conversation. A different outcome. A different version of themselves.

At a certain point, the group realizes something unsettling. There isn’t just one version of them trying to figure this out. There are multiple versions of the same group doing the exact same thing at the same time.

So they come up with a way to identify which version they belong to.

They gather items from inside the house, place them into a box, and each person adds something unique. Some include personal objects, others cut or mark images of themselves, and they use glowsticks to track which group is which. They even assign numbers, trying to create order in the middle of something that clearly doesn’t want to be organized.

The idea is simple. If they leave and come back, they can check the box and confirm they’re still in their original reality.

But every other version of them is doing the exact same thing.

Every group has a box. Every group has glowsticks. Every group believes their system proves they are the original.

So instead of creating certainty, it confirms the opposite.

There’s no clear way to know.

And the more they try to control it, the less stable everything becomes.

When Survival Takes Over

As the realities begin to collide, something very human starts to show. At first, there’s curiosity. Confusion. Even a sense of wonder, but that quickly changes. Because when people feel like they’re losing their place in reality, the instinct that takes over is survival.

Different versions of the same people begin making different choices. Some cooperate. Some hide information. Some become willing to do whatever it takes to secure the version of reality they want.  

And that’s where the movie stops being about physics… and starts being about us.

The Reality We Choose