The Adjacent

Priest (The Islanders) mistakes ambiguity for cleverness in this moderately ambitious tale of separated lovers. In a post-climate-change near future, recently widowed English freelance photographer Tibor Tarent returns from war-torn Turkey to find his homeland altered in the wake of a mysterious terrorist attack—one that looks eerily similar to the strange event that killed his wife. Both turn out to have been caused by “adjacency technology,” which disassembles matter and scatters copies of it through time. Tibor’s confused wanderings are intercut with scenes from other timelines, as versions of him and his wife try to find each other. Priest pauses to wax lovingly on vintage war planes and stage magic (recalling his earlier hit, The Prestige). The structure is neat and leads smartly to a surprisingly strong ending, but the plot collapses under the weight of stilted prose (“But physical action is one thing, while silence is a judged opinion”) and a thoroughly uninteresting yet inexplicably woman-attracting protagonist. (Mar.)