Directed by Arijit Lahiri, Out of Time is a horror mystery thriller currently streaming on JioCinema. The plot revolves around the mysterious time loop that Sameer is stuck in. He is eager to unravel the mysterious disappearance of his father and sets out to resolve it along with his friends, in his old mansion. The film stars faces like Danny Sura and Menaka Lalwani, who have managed to do justice to the plot. Will Sameer be able to break the time loop? What caused Sameer to get stuck in the loop? How was Satyavan sent back to his time? We are yet to find the answers to these questions as we explore the film in depth.
Spoiler Alert
What Happened To Sameer At The Maxwell House?
Sameer was quite intent on finding out the whereabouts of his missing father, Sanjay. On seeing his mother’s mental condition after his father had gone missing, he decided to explore his old mansion to uncover secrets about the disappearance. He went into the house along with his friends and found himself stuck in a time loop where his friends were dying mysteriously. On entering the house, he saw that they were unable to get out when the situation was going haywire. When all his friends were losing their lives, he decided to explore the house and saw a shadow lurking around. On coming close to the figure, Sameer saw his own doppelganger, and before it could give him any explanation, Sameer had stabbed him. Later, he again saw a group of friends coming into the house and understood that it was his own friend circle which he had seen dying in front of his eyes just a while back. He realized that he was stuck in a time loop and wanted to somehow stop it so that he and his friends would not be killed again. He again witnessed his friends getting killed by a mysterious force, one by one. When he faced his own counterpart once again, he tried to attack him, but this time he managed to kill the other Sameer instead. The bodies were vanishing into thin air, making him further confused about his state. He witnessed his friends’ and other counterparts’ deaths over and over again, somehow managing to dodge his own murder. In the fourth loop, he somehow managed to save his girlfriend, Shreya, and tried explaining his current situation. Throughout the loop, Sameer had been his own greatest enemy, murdering his own counterparts so that he would not end up losing his life at their hands. He could not bear to see his own death and the mysterious killings of his friends over and over again, and hence decided to break the chain once and for all.
What Was The Time Loop’s Mystery?
He had discovered a diary written by Dr. A.L. Maxwell, who was a scientist working on a time machine in 1914. He learns that one of his ancestors, Satyavan, was involved in the experiment as he was a science enthusiast. He had been helping the scientist by supplying him with human subjects for the experiment. The experiments were a failure, and the subjects were all killed in the process. He, however, kept all the money that the scientist had given him to hand over to the subjects’ families. When the villagers learned about it, they were infuriated and wanted to murder Satyavan. Satyavan was seeking refuge when Dr. Maxwell asked him to send him to a different time zone through the machine. Satyavan tried starting off the time machine on his own and eventually managed to land in a different time zone (1960). Here, he started leading a normal life, leaving behind his dark past.
What Happened To Satyavan?
He got married and had a child, but as the child was growing up, he realized that his own life was withering away. A form of energy can be transferred or converted but can never be altered, and hence the child that Satyavan had fathered in the other world was taking up the mass and energy that he was occupying there. Upon realizing this, Satyavan took his own life by setting himself on fire. However, it was after death that he realized that in order to attain salvation, or ‘moksha’, he would have to travel back in time to his own time zone in human form. Death could not grant him the salvation that he was seeking. In order to go back to his time zone, all his descendants had to die, which is why his spirit was wandering about in search of his own bloodline to kill them all. It was his dark energy that was causing Sameer and his friends all the trouble in the Maxwell House.
How Did Sameer’s Father Disappear?
Sameer’s father, Sanjay, was an architect who had spent a lot of his time working on the Maxwell project. He had turned the Maxwell hotel into the Maxwell residence, started living with his family there, and then suddenly disappeared one day. It is possible that Satyavan’s dark spirit was after Sanjay, as he was his son, and Satyavan thought that ending his life would let him travel back to his own world. Sanjay could have been stuck in a similar loophole that his son would be in, eventually leading to his death.
What Does Sameer Do To Break The Loop?
When Sameer went through Maxwell’s diary, he realized that the only way to break the loop was to end his own life. He killed his other counterparts and eventually shot himself so that Satyavan could go back in time. After Sameer took his own life, Satyavan was seen returning to his own world in human form. He decided that he would not make the same mistakes that he had previously made by hiding the money. When he saw that the villagers were after his life, he brought out all the money and handed it over to them. The villagers beat him black and blue to the point where we were left thinking that he had lost his life. He later regained his senses and eventually carried his bloodline forward. The audience is directed to the present, where Sameer is seen standing in front of Satyavan’s picture with Dr. Maxwell. His wife, Shreya, is seen praising Satyavan and expressing her awe at the similarities in personality and physical appearance between Satyavan and Sameer. Sameer’s father, Sanjay, was also seen to be alive! Sameer had killed himself in a parallel universe to help Satyavan go back in time and lift the curse that his time-traveling expedition had put on his family.
Final Words
Out of Time’s plot was a bit difficult to comprehend in the beginning, but Satyavan’s identity revelation made it easier for us to understand the story in its entirety. The concept of a parallel universe has been portrayed vividly in films like Inception. Even though the concept is vast, the film Out of Time has tried to capture a small fragment of it. The film’s plot has been woven intrinsically, but the dimly lit set and debutant actors have given out the film’s constrained budget. Despite certain ambiguities, I have thoroughly enjoyed watching Out of Time, as the storyline is what has been my focal point of interest.
