‘The Universal Theory’ Review: A Quantum Noir

A slippery meta-thriller from Germany, “The Universal Theory” has all of the elements of a classic film noir, but with an uncanny twist.

Directed by Timm Kröger, this slick black-and-white movie features a femme fatale, woozy dissolves that stitch together each scene and a booming Bernard Herrmann-esque score by Diego Ramos Rodríguez that never lets up.

And, frankly, an annoyingly convoluted plot.

The story, drenched in postwar paranoia, centers on Johannes (Jan Bülow), a young physicist attending a quantum mechanics conference in the Swiss Alps. The year is 1962 — though what is time, anyway? That question is at the heart of Johannes’s yet-uncompleted doctoral thesis, in which he attempts to make the claim that the multiverse is real. His grouchy supervisor, Dr. Strathan (Hanns Zischler), is sick of hearing about it; the portly, LSD-loving Dr. Blumberg (Gottfried Breitfuss), whom Dr. Strathan despises, is more enthusiastic.

Then there’s Karin (Olivia Ross), a jazz pianist who ensorcels Johannes with her relentless mystique; inexplicably, she knows obscure events from his childhood.

The looming white mountains, shot with a sinister edge by Roland Stuprich, seem to be hiding something, and everyone’s caginess around Johannes turns him into something of a detective figure (a state not unrelated to the manic work of writing his thesis).

Murdered individuals then start popping up around Johannes. It’s more than enough to make our hero go mad, though the film fails to present this unraveling with enough psychological grit and narrative momentum to make its more unusual surprises feel impactful. Though visually handsome, the film leaves the audience with the sense that, like a grad student, it is still working out its big ideas.

The Universal Theory
Not rated. In German, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. In theaters.