'Universe25' Review: A Spiritual Journey Searching for Solid Ground
- Elliot Lines
- 2 minutes ago
- 2 min read
By Elliot Lines - December 6, 2025
Some films sweep you along. Others challenge you. Universe25 manages to do a little of both — drifting more than driving, but with a curious pull that’s hard to shake. It’s lyrically strange, spiritually ambitious and, at its best, quietly hypnotic. A film that sits somewhere between dream and sermon, it invites patience, invites reflection, and though it doesn’t always deliver on every promise, there’s a sincerity in its searching that’s easy to appreciate.
What’s Universe25 About?
The film opens in a UK dead-letter office, where a young postal clerk stumbles upon a mysterious, torn manuscript. The author claims to be Mott — an “angel from the future” sent on a divine mission. On the brink of apocalypse, Mott must complete three cryptic tasks before the next Sabbath: find a saint (unaware of his own holiness), locate a sacrificial lamb for a sacrament, and write a scroll documenting everything he witnesses on Earth.
Universe25 shines strongest in mood. The cinematography feels damp, urban, slightly haunted — as though the world is already slipping past its final days. There’s intimacy in its quiet moments, where Mott stands still and the film trusts the silence to speak. Giacomo Gex carries that silence well, offering vulnerability over certainty, confusion over confidence. It’s a lead performance that invites curiosity, even sympathy.
But while the tone is compelling, the storytelling wanders. Scenes often feel like fragments rather than steps. The film circles its ideas rather than driving through them, and there are stretches where it’s difficult to tell if we’re being guided toward revelation or simply walking in loops. Some viewers will call that poetic. Others — fairly — will simply call it slow.
Emotionally, the film remains restrained. It’s reflective, yes, but rarely moving in a way that hits the gut. For a story about apocalypse and faith, it often feels strangely distant — like watching a man search for God behind a pane of glass.
There’s something admirable about Universe25 — its ambition, its stillness, its willingness to hold mystery without rushing to explain it. When it connects, it does so with an almost devotional aura, like a whispered confession in a quiet church. But it’s also uneven, sometimes opaque to the point of frustration, and more atmospheric than emotionally affecting.
You can see the film it wants to be — a cosmic parable, a spiritual descent, a meditation on belief. What arrives on screen is compelling, but incomplete.
'Universe25' makes UK premiere at Armenian Film Festival London December 7.
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