The Rift

April 24, 2017
In this fractured postmodern drama of a pair of separated sisters, the warmth of togetherness has to survive the coldness of rational fact. Julie disappeared one summer day 20 years ago, presumably the victim of a local predator. Her sister, Selena, settled into being an only child, even as her father continued to obsess over his missing daughter. After he dies, Julie returns, claiming she fell through “the rift” into another world, Tristane, that’s threatened by an alien memory-stealing parasite. Selena wants to believe Julie’s story, even as their mother refuses to. Allan crafts mirrored portraits of two women at odds with their own lives coming into a more stable orbit around each other. But the duplications in their narratives (both are taken in by older, capable women, neither has a long-term relationship, both prefer solitude to socializing) seem more like repetitive reproductions than reflections that might offer additional insight into the story’s themes.