“I never meant to be so bad to you
One thing I said that I would never do
A look from you, and I would fall from grace
And that would wipe the smile right from my face …”– from “Heat of the Moment” by Asia
In sci-fi storytelling, a time loop is used as a means to teach the protagonist something. In the cases of Groundhog Day’s Phil and Palm Springs’s Nyles, the loop is meant to make them less selfish, less destructive. For The Map of Tiny Perfect Things’s Mark, it’s about understanding how to be present and available for someone outside of himself. For Rewrite’s Miyuki, it’s about taking control of one’s own narrative as the outsider watching someone else looping. In a fascinating amalgamation of several of these ideas, concepts, and approaches, Again Again, written by actor/co-director Mia Moore (The People’s Joker) and co-directed by Heather Ballish (See Me), posits what occurs the day after a 10-year loop ends and the relative havoc being stuck within a single day causes. Having its California premiere during Dances with Films LA 2026, Moore and Ballish’s Again Again is messy, raw, and complex as it utilizes the expected tropes of the time loop subgenre to examine self-destructive tendencies, toxic relationships, and the desire to be seen and understood.
Mia Moore as Agatha in AGAIN AGAIN. Photo courtesy of Dysphorium Films.
For the last 10 years, Agatha (Moore) has lived the same day over and over. She’s awoken in her bed next to girlfriend Tessa (Aria Taylor) in their motorhome, explored the town in which it’s currently parked, and done everything she can to get the loop to stop. Suddenly, without warning, she wakes up and it’s tomorrow. But what does tomorrow look like to someone for whom tomorrow wasn’t real anymore?
L-R: Aria Taylor as Tessa and Mia Moore as Agatha in AGAIN AGAIN. Photo courtesy of Dysphorium Films.
Again Again bears a lot of the hallmarks of a first-time feature. From a technical standpoint, Ballish and Moore beautifully present the time loop structure that audiences know within a specific perspective and lens. They don’t tread on the narrative paths of others. They establish Agatha before the loop, putting them in it, and then ending with the release. Using full-color to mark present events and black and white for within, Ballish and Moore drop audiences right into the thick of things: Agatha having endured the loop for 10 years; Tessa being convinced of Agatha’s experience; them curling in bed like Yin and Yang, touching finger-tips and caressing hands. The choice to open like this trusts the viewers to understand the mechanics, establishes the intimacy between the two central characters, and also ensuring that the bulk of the time is spent examining what it means to be trapped like that. Because, what so many films don’t explore is the psychological impact of no longer experiencing the same day over and again after doing so over 3,500 times. This is just one aspect of what sets Again Again apart from other films of the subgenre. Usually, the mental breakdown happens within the loop before the protagonist figures out how to break free, whereas, as written and performed by Moore, the stressor of the experience doesn’t end just because bodily autonomy is returned. At the same time that Agatha finds herself able to go places untethered by what’s occurring in the time-locked period, it unleashes an unpredictability of consequence. Consider what it means when your entire life is regimented to a tight radius and you’re the only one who remembers events that happen as everything plays out nearly identically upon each loop reset. Time ceases to have meaning, as do relationships, as do consequences — everything goes back to how it was, so what does it matter what happened within the loop? Once outside, however, words and deeds carry weight, experience, and significance as tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow has returned. As an actor, Moore conveys the psychological brutality of renewed freedom through the ways Agatha tries to cope, making one consider just how destructive someone can become in order to make sense of the chaos endured. The expectation, presented within the film by Tessa’s reaction, is one of jubilation at the ending of the loop, but no film has really considered what it does to the person and Moore as Agatha brings that to crushing life here. As a writer, Moore is unafraid to make Agatha an unpleasant and unlikeable protagonist while still maintaining a worthiness of sympathy. The flashbacks to black and white help us to understand what Agatha’s experience was like as dealing with being the only person that remembers words and deeds by others carries with it a specific psychological impact as a conversation one day can result in a different outcome with cascading implications that only Agatha knows about. It’s an excruciatingly heavy notion and one that this film doesn’t unpack cleanly — intentionally or not.
This is where the film is weakest as the relationship between Agatha and Tessa is messy. On the one hand, this is quite intentional in the way that the narrative highlights how these two long-time friends possess different outlooks, yet can’t help being drawn to each other. There are plenty of stories in which people find themselves longing for a person who they cannot have or where the realization that comes is how, sometimes, despite being in love, it’s not enough to make a coupling withstand their issues. For the duration of the film, regardless of the circumstances Agatha’s been faced with, her treatment of Tessa comes across as manipulative and harmful. The script, smartly, is aware of this, making clear the whens and wheres of a few instances in which Agatha had “cause” for their actions akin to the infamous Ross and Rachel “on a break” scandal; except Agatha knows that things reset. Even if her grip on reality is such that there are no consequences when trapped in time, it’s still a choice to harm one’s partner because “tomorrow” is “today.” Additionally, even as the film presents a brilliant twist related to the time loop itself that directly correlates to the themes tied to the two central characters, the twist itself both accentuates Agatha’s trauma and the degree by which neither of them should remain together. Again and again, the film presents two people who shouldn’t be together, including a scene between Moore’s Agatha and Abigail Thorn’s (Castration Movie Anthology iii. Year of the Hyaena) Naomi that will fully break your heart. Even as the film tries to keep putting the two (Agatha and Tessa) together, it’s so clear that they shouldn’t be and their reluctance to let go, to see what they become tomorrow, could be a film unto itself.
Mia Moore as Agatha in AGAIN AGAIN. Photo courtesy of Dysphorium Films.
Again Again differentiates itself from so many of its time loop siblings in a multitude of ways, making the entire experience quite refreshing. Much like Agatha on her first new day, we don’t know where any choice is going to deliver us. There’s so much freedom here that it’s almost too much, some possibly needing to be reined in. The point about Agatha’s self-destructive tendencies is made so frequently that the romantic entanglement that’s meant to anchor the film can be lost. But it may be intentionally lost amid the noise of Agatha’s attempts to find her way post-loop, be who she was, and discover who she is, all while carrying the burden of time and experience that no one else shares. Again Again could be, through a different lens, quite horrific as a sci-fi psychological thriller of absent bodily autonomy and control, yet Ballish and Moore manage to find the balance between the real and raw versus the elevated and refined to maintain Again Again’s humanity even in its darkest moments. Even if one finds themselves struggling to parse the many ideas within the film, one thing is clear: control over one’s self is paramount to a successful relationship. To know thyself is to understand how to be a part of someone else. When the self is in chaos, so is everything else.
Screening during Dances With Films: LA 2026.
For more information, head to the official Dances with Films LA Again Again webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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