The Fare is a 2018 thriller film directed by D.C Hamilton, starring Gino Anthony Pesi as Harris and Brinna Kelly as Penny.
Harris is a cab driver traveling en route to pick up a passenger along a deserted dirt road. He meets his fare, a charming woman named Penny, and they chat and flirt while he drives her to her destination. After encountering some bad weather and a near accident, Harris turns around to realize that Penny has disappeared without a trace. At the direction of his dispatcher, Harris resets his fare and returns to the city.
However, the same events start anew, happening more or less the same. Harris picks Penny up, they have a conversation, then at the same point in the road, Penny disappears. After Harris starts to recall details from their previous encounters, Penny confesses that he has picked her up hundreds of times, only for her to disappear at the same point in their journey. The trip resets and Harris forgets while Penny remembers.
The Fare contains examples of:
- Amnesiac Lover: Harris for Penny. He forgot about their previous history together when he drank water from the River Lethe.
- Dead All Along: Harris died in an accident before the start of the film. But his soul is burdened with transporting the recently deceased to the Underworld as punishment for falling in love with Penny.
- The Ferryman: Harris serves as one as part of punishment inflicted upon him by Hades.
- Foreshadowing:
- Harris's last name is Caron. Like Charon, Harris also serves as the Ferryman for recently deceased souls, accepting a coin as payment when the dead arrive in the Underworld.
- The Straw Feminist radio host mentions the myth of Hades kidnapping Persephone during her rant on chauvinism.
- Penny's destination is the corner of River and Elm. There are six main rivers flowing through the Greek underworld, and an Elm where false dreams hang is at its entrance.
- Penny tells Harris not the drink the water because it caused him to forget her in the first place. The water is from the river Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.
- Harris picks up Penny in the cold and speaks of someone else "riveting" he met in the summer. Persephone lives in the Underworld only during the winter.
- See Star-Crossed Lovers below.
- Genre Shift: The Fare starts as a Film Noir inspired mystery thriller, stylized with harsh shadows and completely in black and white. Science Fiction elements are introduced when the "Groundhog Day" Loop kicks in and Harris and Penny are tasked with trying to break the loop. It eventually segues into an Urban Fantasy Fantastic Romance inspired by Classical Mythology.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The main premise is that Harris and Penny are experience a never-ending time loop that restarts at a certain point in their trip.
- Mayfly–December Romance: Harris and Penny's romance is this, when they first meet in the world of the living and fall in love. Considering he's still alive and human and Penny is really Persephone, it's safe to assume she's thousands of years older than he is.
- Montages: One takes place near the end of the film when we see all of the eccentric passengers Harris has to ferry to the afterlife.
- Once More, with Clarity: The scene where Penny describes her unhappy arranged marriage that she can't escape is shown again when Harris realizes that she can't leave her husband because he is Hades and she is Persephone.
- Really 700 Years Old: Penny and the dispatcher, seeing as they are Persephone and Hades.
- Red Herring: Harris is listening to a radio show about time traveling aliens that can alter reality. We're led to believe aliens could be the cause of the time loop, but the real cause is completely different.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Penny remembers the hundreds of loops she and Harris have experienced. Harris doesn't recall her at first, but then slowly begins to retain his memory of her.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Penny recounts the legend of Vega and Altair, two stars separated by the Milky Way who could only reunite once a year. Like Vega and Altair, Harris and Penny can only see each other once a year, when she is making her trip back to the Underworld.
- Time Loop Fatigue: Once Harris fully remembers Penny, they work together to find new ways to break the loop. Harris grows despondent when everything they try fails.
