In the “Things Will Be Different,” the feature directorial debut of editor Michael Felker, the siblings with a history of struggles are not only described as being figuratively but also literally described as having been stuck in the past. As the title suggests, this well crafted gritty low budget time travel heist film represents hope where one seeks to fix their past mistakes using time travel. The filmmaker however in this science fiction sweetens his story by explaining the need of mankind to fix previous mistakes which centralizes the story considered an interesting two hander.
Following the robbery which by the way is not the first unlawful act for them, Joseph (Adam David Thompson) and his sister Sidney (Riley Dandy), an estranged sister and brother respectively vacation at some remote farmhouse with antique cuckoo clocks and a normal looking cupboard, both of which enables them to time travel. With the permission of Joseph’s friends’ recommendations, they can wait for two weeks before returning to their timeline, which Sydney only needs to do for the sake of her child, meaning that they will have no hitch during the execution of the operative.
The show has a somewhat frustrating twist to the plot. The time they have spent in America comes in quite handy as they have two VHS tapes, CDs and later on a tape recorder which functions as a form of contact with the given time. The device serves a purpose because it connects took a time period in the future. As it stands, the pair attempts to rekindle their friendship because of the friction that exists between them as a result of their past trauma, but how long can they endure their period of seclusion? They have been put in an iron hand and the only way to cove is wait for and take out a certain guest.
As if reading the rules of “Beetlejuice” made Joseph and Sydney, in addition to the rules of existing, have to stay on the property, or they will start bleeding. The only thing that exists in that specified area is a ring of blood. Blood that has already stopped other people from trying to break the time prison. We regret that the only full explanation provided involves the theory of quantum physics. However, it is clear that there are people in power who govern this side of the gateway. Sydney at some point put forward a couple of her views regarding some of the pictures peering around the house, but all were just drawn out speculation.
To relate the two main protagonists without losing variety on the defining trope of independent cinema (pairing two actors together in one space), Dorson makes a number of stylistic decisions to illustrate the focal points of the narrative with imagery. An instance is moving the camera in a 360 degree circle to signal that the siblings were in this waiting state for a year. Such camera movements, however, achieve more than just the depiction of time passing, which in this case suffers from a monotonic enactment of the passage of time: the movement evokes a sense of time in a ‘loop’, accentuating the theme of an anxious mood of the film. The past and the present are juxtaposed seamlessly through match-cut close ups, representing time oscillating in a blurring lens.
Black Eyed Peas ‘Let’s Get It Started’ (in album ‘Elephant’) Gory brother, you seem rattled. This musical number accompanies Thompson’s wild dance moves as he tries hard to have a good time in Nicholasville’s company, grinning like a maniac. The lavish portions of extravagance in style are surrendered to the performances of Thompson and Dandy played in this stage. In return, the actors echolocate each other’s emotional distresses extending the grief if one might say – as their characters come to terms not only with the present and of the experiences to come of what they’ve done to one another and better still, how what they’ve done, in essence, might all exist as a cycle or continuum. With that said, when Thompson in his throaty roars screams ‘Looks like the Tables Have Turned’ it is easy for the audience to imagine the brawly Joseph being on the end of her viciousness. And when he hears the even more unnerving prospects of being consumed by neither life nor death, suddenly everything becomes clear, revealing what is at stake that it is, the weight of the world. Dandy remains defiant in that for the start, and when playing Sidney, she portrays a highly believable iciness suggesting in fact a civilized aspect of her character that, being the cooler one of the two, even has her own reservations, remaining unconvinced about Jordan.
Nevertheless, because the narrative becomes preoccupied with trying to avoid revealing as much as it can while being more detailed in its exploration of time travel, ‘Things Will Be Different’ actually bears more resemblance to Christopher Nolan’s critically baffling film Tenet than it does to Rian Johnson’s simpler Looper. By the time the storyline approaches its climax, a viewer may find themselves having to draw out a diagram to explain how and more importantly in which order the different timelines interact. In reference to this incursive co-existence, there is Joseph and Sydney’s matching tattoos which look like a Venn diagram. Is this also another hint to help piece together the strands of events?
That Felker had also cut The Endless earlier, yet another time warp yarn by indie tandem Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who are credited as executive producers here, suggests that he was already primed to be on this dock. The ionization of the scene has been suggested by Felker’s co-editor Rebeca Marques and images like the song blaring from the boombox or snippets of Joe Murray’s flashback have completely misled the viewers in regard to the whereabouts of the character Joseph and Sidney need to take out.
While this balance between high concept and the human aspect sometimes slips, “Things Will Be Different” is a promising attempt to fuse together emotions and intellectual stimulation.
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