You ever have one of those days? You know, one where you’re playing tennis, get run over by a Toyota, your wife leaves you, and then you end up in the wrong universe and have to battle a demigod? Would you like to? This day comes courtesy of Writer/Director/DP Michael Duignan’s The Paragon.
Dutch (Benedict Wall) is a mediocre tennis player whose career comes to a screeching halt when a car hits and kills him. Lucky for Dutch, a shop owner just happened to have a defibrillator machine, which he used to revive him. This reduces Dutch’s death sentence to a mere 6 minutes rather than eternity. This hit-and-run leaves Dutch with a busted leg, an end to his career, and a swan dive into depression. He decides that what he needs to do is find the guy who hit him and make him pay.
In his search, Dutch comes across a strange flyer stuck to a light pole, which asks, “Do you want to see the unseen? Read thoughts. See the future. Find hidden objects. Unleash the power of your mind.” This leads him to Lyra (Florence Noble), who, after intense questioning, decides to send him through training to learn psychic power.
After much training, Dutch reveals that he really only wants to learn how to psychically find the car that hit him. Lyra agrees to help him find the car if he helps her locate something as well – The Paragon. The Paragon is an object that will allow an adept (one who possesses psychic power) to access anything, anywhere in spacetime. What’s more, she needs to find it before her evil brother Haxan (Jonny Brugh) finds it to prevent him from becoming an archon/demigod. Once he discovers the repercussions of getting exactly what he wants, Dutch begins to become more aware of the welfare of others.
“…a mediocre tennis player whose career comes to a screeching halt when a car hits and kills him.”
I struggled to find an exact genre to fit The Paragon into. It begins as a comedy/drama (dramedy, as the kids say), then effortlessly slides into fantasy and sci-fi without so much as batting a crooked eyelash in transition. And somehow, throughout it all, it manages to teach you a bit about loss and grief.
Duignan does a wonderful job of splicing these objectives without obstacles. The audio and visuals are impressive for a micro-budget film like this. Our lead actors, Benedict Wall and Florence Noble, do a great job conveying their characters’ personalities—Wall’s self-centered dreamer who seems completely unaware of the thoughts of others and Noble’s overly serious, hyper-focused mystic with a firm grasp on the inner workings of the universe.
I particularly like these quotes from Lyra in her teachings with Dutch: “What you’re feeling is called cosmic sorrow. Sorrow for the loss of someone you’ve never met. That feeling is called cosmic loneliness. It’s the feeling of missing friends you’ve never met.“
If you like comedy, fantasy, human emotion, and well-made indie films, do check out The Paragon.
"…comedy, fantasy, human emotion in a well-made indie film"
