 
The Tesseract Coincidence or serendipity? I watched these films in the same weekend and discovered an intriguing linkage: in both of them, a young, mischievous boy commits an act that directly (and indirectly) affects the other characters by setting off a tragic chain of events.
Intermission is a different animal altogether, with 54 characters and 11 storylines deftly woven together a la Robert Altman by first-time director John Crowley. Set in a small Irish town, the colorful cast of characters find themselves falling in and out of a) love, b) work and c) criminal activity. Colin Farrell plays a dangerous thug, Colm Meany is a hard-boiled detective with dubious morals and Cillian Murphy and Kelly MacDonald are confused lovers whose separation leads to a bizarre kidnapping plot. Oh and that kid I mentioned earlier? He likes to throw rocks at moving vehicles. Intermission successfully balances tense drama with droll humor and leaves the viewer feeling a little better off for having spent time with a host of very unique individuals. -- David Bassin
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Intermission
The
Tesseract is set in a Bangkok hotel and jumps forwards, backwards and
sideways in time as the story unfolds. A drug mule (played by Johnathan
Rhys-Meyers looking gaunt and strung-out) waits in his room for a delivery.
A leather-clad female assassin attempts to take out a gangland boss
and is seriously wounded. A psychologist silently grieves over the loss
of her son as she interviews local children for a documentary on their
hopes and dreams. A thirteen-year-old boy named Wit works in the hotel
and routinely ransacks the guest rooms in search of booty to sell on
the black market. While he may have been successful in the past, this
time his greed sends the lives of the main characters spiraling out
of control. Director Oxide Pang Chun creates a world that’s dark
and claustrophobic, whether or not scenes are shot in the hotel, on
the streets of the city, or out in the rural countryside and keeping
the focus on the five main characters only serves to reinforce the fact.