immortality (2022) review
Immortality has you pausing, playing back, and searching through an entire archive of footage documenting the life of Marissa Marcel- a missing actress who never quite took off in the industry, only acting in movies that were never released for reasons unknown.
“What happened to Marissa Marcel?”
That’s up to the player to figure out by combing through all the footage documenting the events of her life. The footage found from each of these movies contains raw takes, rehearsal takes, fully-edited scenes, to talk show interviews- essentially anytime Marcel appeared on camera.
The player is presented with one clip from the start and unlocks more by way of clicking on any item in the frame, transitioning the player to a new clip with the same subject they clicked on in the previous clip.
For example: the first clip is a talk show interview with Marissa Marcel in the 60’s. Clicking on the mug she’s sipping from transports the player to a clip of her in the 90’s before she disappeared.
It’s up to the player how they want to view these clips and uncover the fate of Marissa Marcel whether it’s watching each clip one-by-one, or clicking away at every corner of footage until hundreds of clips are available.
An hour into my playthrough of Immortality was when I stumbled upon this game’s “second side”. Without going into spoiler territory, Immortality looks like a game where the player is tasked to watch a series of clips until they piece together the full story, but this game also has a much more abstract, Lynchian alter-ego that is worth uncovering and experiencing on your own. With that said, only one thing is essential to uncovering the truth and that is playing with a controller, some may argue even headphones as certain cues that lead to the truth are less obvious when playing with mouse and keyboard (if playing on PC).
Manon Gage gives an outstanding performance as Marissa Marcel, making me forget that what I was experiencing was a fictional story. And that credit is extended to the rest of the cast and crew that were able to deliver performances that felt candid from behind the scenes.
There is a bizarre energy to each clip. A wince from an actor when asked an unassuming question, an emotional reaction that might not have been part of the script during a take, and chemistry between two people that isn’t immediately explained. What makes this game incredibly addicting and hard to put down is the possibility that the whole mystery could be blown wide open with the next clip you watch.
The main goal of the game is to find out what happened to Marcel, but she’s not the only one with a mysterious fate. I found myself straying from the main path of solving Marcel’s case quite a number of times. “Why were none of these movies ever released? What was going on behind-the-scenes with the cast and crew? Were these two cast mates sleeping together?” I cannot say there’s an answer for every question I asked, nor does there need to be because that’s not the main draw of this game.
Immortality is not a very long game, my playthrough only lasting 4-5 hours. But 5 hours is the perfect runtime for this game because right before its final moments, I felt the wow factor and excitement of the mystery had begun to wear off and my hands and ears had become numb from certain audio cues and the controller vibrating in my hands during most of those 5 hours. Any fan of David Lynch’s work will feel right at home with the abstract and unsettling story of Immortality. This is the perfect kind of game for someone to get invested in for a few hours and watch a mystery unfold.
