Steve's Tumor
During Synchronic's first act, Steve is given some devastating medical news. Sitting atop his pineal gland (the area affected by Synchronic) is a massive brain tumor that can either kill him in six weeks or linger for years. After being told his gland is so enigmatically youthful that mystics might consider it a "third eye," Steve starts radiation therapy.With his life feeling less meaningful than ever, Steve discovers a new purpose for his existence after Dennis' daughter Brianna goes missing upon taking a Synchronic pill.
The Vanishing of Brianna
After talking to Synchronic's creator, Steve learns that the pills directly zap the pineal gland and make the user travel to a different point in time. That's especially true in cases involving young pineal glands, like 18-year-old Brianna — and, as luck would have it, Steve (thanks to his tumor). Yes, teens are more likely to transport back in time and, therefore, are more at risk of getting stuck.So, while Dennis goes through all the usual and traditional routes of trying to find Brianna, Steve uses his knowledge to try a different plan of action. Steve begins to take pills from a final batch of Synchronic he bought to try and locate where Brianna is stuck in the past. Dennis, unaware of his friend's tumor or Brianna's possible situation, is none the wiser.
Given his terminal tumor diagnosis, Steve figures he can go out strong in helping Dennis find his daughter. But he's not going to try time traveling without running some tests first.
Time Travel
Throughout the film, Steve performs several experiments with Synchronic to best figure out the rules of time travel! He's as prepared as he can be to go looking for Brianna in the past.Steve discovers he vanishes for seven minutes (seven minutes in the past while also being gone for seven minutes in the present) while filming the experiments. He also learns that where he takes the pill and vanishes, the actual physical spot, affects what year he appears in the past. It never changes. If he takes the drug in the same place every time, he'll go to that same time and date. Taking the pill on his couch took him to swamplands (by an angry conquistador) while doing the drug a few feet away in the same living room transported him back to the ice age.
After experimenting with his dog, Hawking, Steve realizes that trying to bring someone back with him is a gamble. Some of the people who died brought back objects they were directly touching, but Steve loses Hawking to the past even though he was holding his pet's leash. Actual direct contact is required.
There's more. During that same trip, Steve discovered that if he didn't return to the exact spot he was standing in when he initially traveled through time, the window would close. This is when he realizes what happened to Brianna: she must have become stranded in time.
One final discovery that helps Steve gain enough confidence to go through with his plan to rescue Brianna is that carrying an object from the present can help anchor you.
Synchronic's Ending Explained
After initially and incorrectly guessing where Brianna took the pill, Steve has once chance left as he's running out of Synchronic. Finally letting Dennis in on everything, the duo relocate to a rock in a park that Brianna was sitting on earlier in the movie. The rock is marked with the phrase "Allways" (spelled like that, yes), which Dennis tells Steve was the last word he said to his daughter. She must have done this in the past in order to send a signal, right?Turns out the location was right, but it was most likely Steve who carved "Allways" into the stone. We can assume this because when Brianna was found in the past by Steve during a massive Revolutionary War battle, she didn't know the reference. With only two pills left for this adventure, Steve gives the last remaining dose to Brianna, and rushes her back to the rock.
Brianna, on the rock, returns to the present. Steve, who was injured and dealing with a hostile soldier, doesn't.
Similar to the way Steve saw his dog flicker like a ghost before vanishing into the past permanently, Dennis and Brianna see Steve's flickering image. It lasts long enough that Dennis is able to shake Steve's hand, thanking his friend for saving Brianna, before Steve presumedly blinks away for good.
Much like the ending of Inception where we don't see the spinning top's fate, however, we don't see Steve disappear. While it's most likely that Steve sacrificed himself and got locked hundreds of years in the past, we can't be sure. If someone truly wants to believe the rock (and then the handshake) was enough of an anchor to help Steve get back, there's certainly a case for it.
Why was "Allways" spelled with two L's? No particular reason except that, well, that's the way Steve read it in the present. It's a loop, right? He spelled it like that because he'd seen that he already did.
Let's play around a little more.
There's also some slight vagary when it comes to Brianna, who mentions to Steve earlier in the movie while sitting on the rock, "There's something wrong with me" right before Steve gets a call from his doctor. She doesn't get to finish her thought.
Obviously, it may just be teen angst. But the way the movie dabbles with time — not just with hard sci-fi elements but also in the way it sometimes circles back and re-shows us parts of previous scenes that were left out — suggests an overall temporal incongruity. There's a very gentle multiverse at play here, an underlying theme of different outcomes and possibilities. When Steve's in the midst of radiation therapy, we catch glimpses of alternate takes of earlier moments. That includes the moment between Steve and Brianna by the rock. It's as if he was remembering moments that didn't actually happen in his own timeline.
Was there more to Brianna's "wrongness" to explore, as if she was a teen unstuck in time somehow, or is that just digging too deep?What do you think happened at the end of Synchronic? Do you agree with our theories or do you have a different take? Let us know in the comments below.
