Multiverse Dating for Beginners
2017 · 13m · Canada
Directed by Kelly Tatham
Genres: comedy, romance, sci-fi
Tones: humorous, surreal, whimsical
Ivy and Dave are hitting it off on a first date until she says the wrong thing and freaks him out — but a glitch in a magical scarf lets Ivy replay the encounter across parallel realities, testing what happens when she plays the dating game differently.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A magical scarf as a multiverse dating device is exactly the kind of premise that makes everyone else nervous—and that's precisely why it works. Tatham wrings genuine feminist teeth from rom-com cliché by weaponizing genre convention itself, turning a first date into a playground where the rules get laughably exposed.
The film sits comfortably in a lineage of playful sci-fi comedies, though it never quite reaches the formal sophistication of its influences; the editing rhythms feel serviceable rather than considered, and the surrealism remains decorative rather than structurally essential.
The decision to loop the same scene across realities without resetting the emotional stakes—each version of Ivy carries the weight of the previous failures—is what transforms a gimmick into something genuinely poignant about performance and self-awareness.
Reviews
A surrealist look at the romantic comedy and how the choices we make create new worlds.
I loved it at Napa Valley Film Festival — a feminist, magical-realism rom-com that uses the multiverse to ask the 'what if' questions every dater carries around.
Festivals
- Napa Valley Film Festival 2018
- Portland Film Festival 2018
- Vancouver Short Film Festival 2018
- Cinequest Film & VR Festival 2018, Audience Award Runner-Up
- Windy City Film Festival 2018, Best Director
- Gig Harbor Film Festival 2018, Best Short