Aporia 2023

Eight months after the death of her husband [Malcolm Rice], [Sophie Rice] is mired in depression and finds her relationship with her daughter [Riley Rice] strained. She is also frustrated that [Darby Brinkley], the drunk driver who killed Malcolm, has not faced any legal repercussions. Malcolm’s best friend, physicist [Jabir Karim], reveals a machine they built that can send a subatomic particle to a designated moment in the past, where if the particle materializes there, it will kill the living being it appears within. The device isn’t yet powerful enough to achieve its ultimate aim — to kill the man responsible for Malcolm’s death ten years earlier — but Jabir proposes a provocative option: they could use it to kill Darby before the accident and thus prevent Malcolm’s death. Initially skeptical, Sophie ultimately agrees, and the trio activates the machine, only to discover they have created a new timeline in which Malcolm never dies. In this altered reality, only Sophie and Jabir remember the original timeline, and Jabir deduces that those present at the moment of activation retain memories of what came before.

At first, Sophie experiences the joy of having Malcolm back, but that happiness is tempered by a growing unease as numerous small and large changes ripple through the timeline. She eventually confides in Malcolm about what she and Jabir did, and the three of them continue to refine the machine. As they push forward, the ethical questions intensify: should they keep altering the past, and what unanticipated consequences might follow? Jabir grows convinced that the device could be used to erase mass murders by preemptively killing the perpetrators, while Sophie and Malcolm worry about the unpredictable results of tampering with time.

The moral stakes rise further when Sophie learns that [Kara Brinkley], Darby’s widow, and her young daughter [Aggie Brinkley] are destitute in this new timeline. Aggie’s battle with multiple sclerosis and Kara’s medical struggles become a catalyst for Sophie’s guilt and a renewed sense of responsibility. Wanting to help, they decide to use the machine to aid the Brinkleys. They manage to erase a longtime con man who had deceived Kara in the past, and as a result Kara and Aggie start running a bakery together. Yet this good deed comes at a personal cost: their changes cause Sophie and Malcolm’s own daughter to disappear in this timeline, leaving the couple with a son whose existence they do not fully share.

Faced with the growing complexity of their interference, the three agree that Jabir should use the machine to save his own family by erasing the invention from history, thereby restoring a world where the machine never existed. The plan is stark: Jabir will activate the device alone, keeping his memories intact while Sophie and Malcolm have theirs altered to fit the new reality. With heavy hearts but hopeful futures in mind, they brace for an uncertain outcome as Jabir activates the machine.

In the final moment, a new timeline unfolds where Sophie returns home from work and enters the front door of her house, and the film closes without revealing what awaits inside. The ending drops the audience into a moment of quiet ambiguity, leaving questions about memory, family, and the costs of playing with time.