Before 'Mr. Robot', Sam Esmail Made a Hypnotizing Sci-Fi Rom-Com Everyone Missed

Sam Esmail is best known for the groundbreaking Mr. Robot – a cult series that blurs the boundaries of reality and plays with the concept of time.

Yet a year before achieving that fame, he directed his debut feature, Comet. The movie largely escaped the notice of the general public and is now primarily remembered as an overlooked gem of independent cinema.

It is difficult to categorize Comet: it is simultaneously a sci-fi melodrama, a romantic comedy turned inside out, and a meditation on the nature of memory.

What Is 'Comet' About?

The story centers on Dell, a cynical and pessimistic pharmaceutical executive, and Kimberly, a young woman who prefers not to plan beyond five minutes. They meet in a cemetery during a meteor shower, and an immediate spark ignites between them.

The movie uses a fragmented timeline and jumps between parallel realities to trace the couple's cycle of meeting and parting over six years.

Fragments of their love are scattered throughout the film like pieces of a puzzle: a hotel room in Paris, wedding preparations, an unusual train journey, a painful breakup, a late-night phone call, and a reunion.

'Comet' Is a Romantic Puzzle That Involves Time and Parallel Realities

Even in his debut movie, Sam Esmail employs the techniques that would later make Mr. Robot famous: cyclical structures, fragmented chronology, narrative leaps, and the sense that the characters' reality is on the verge of unraveling.

To heighten the sense of hopelessness and the impossibility of true intimacy, Esmail constructs an otherworldly, almost surreal environment. In it, two suns might rise simultaneously or fluffy snow might fall inside a hotel room.

The nonlinear narrative creates the sensation of traveling through the characters' dreams, where the same event is recalled differently depending on the person's mood.

Esmail eschews the standard "meet-fight-reconcile" formula, portraying relationships instead as a substance that exists simultaneously in all its various manifestations. No one becomes a "good person" simply by falling in love – and that is perhaps the most honest, yet also the most unsettling, aspect of Comet.

'Comet' Is a Visual Feast That Still Has Depth

Beneath its apparent stylishness and visual posturing, Esmail offers a thoughtful narrative. Comet began as a five-act play, but through restructuring and associative editing, it found a unique form.

The movie is filled with touching and vivid details that make you fall in love with the characters and their endless relationship cycle. The parallel drawn between a sudden flare of intense emotion and a comet's tail illuminating the sky is rendered so sincerely that one cannot accuse the director of excessive naiveté.

Comet is a hypnotic, visually dazzling, and emotionally devastating story about the difficulty of letting go of someone, even when you realize you aren't meant to be together.

What Did Critics & Viewers Think of 'Comet'?

• Comet has 44% from critics and 53% from viewers on Rotten Tomatoes.

• On IMDb, the movie has a score of 6.7/10.

• On Letterboxd, Comet scored 3.6/5.0.

Where to Watch 'Comet'?

Comet is available to stream on The Roku Channel or Kanopy.