Aporia feels like it’s going to be a different and devastating kind of time travel thriller

Like many of the movies debuting at this year’s Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, Well Go USA’s new sci-fi thriller Aporia from writer / director Jared Moshé riffs on well-known sci-fi tropes to tell a deeply personal story about — among other things — devastating emotional loss. But whereas most time travel narratives about people trying to change the past focus on figuring out how to get there and then deal with the repercussions that come with changing history, Aporia revolves around one grieving woman’s desperate attempt to put her life right by sending a bullet back to the exact point when it all went wrong.

Aporia tells the tale of how a woman named Sophie (Judy Greer) is blindsided by the sudden death of her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi) and is left spiraling as she struggles to be there for their daughter Riley (Faithe Herman). Like Mal’s best friend Jabir (Payman Maadi), all Sophie wants is to have her husband back, and she’d do anything to make that dream a reality. But unlike Sophie, Jabir — a former physicist — actually has an idea about how to make that happen: a machine capable of firing bullets backward through time.

Aporia’s first trailer (featured up top) details how Jabir’s idea isn’t nearly as far fetched as it initially sounds in terms of its ability to alter the past. But in this exclusive clip from the film, everything about Jabir’s miraculous machine and his plan to use it seems predicated on the idea that the ends always justify the means — regardless of the moral costs or consequences. And as big of a red flag as that should be, Sophie seems to agree.

Aporia is slated to premiere tonight at this year’s Fantasia Film Festival and is due to hit theaters on August 11th.