There's a lot of things that you can do with time travel, a lot of tricks to the genre, rules that are never consistent, and interpretations of the science that no two stories ever really feel the same, often within the same franchise (Doctor Who rewrites the rules ever few years it seems). But despite this, it can sometimes feel that people never really take any big leaps with the concept, that there's not really a new idea that feels like it's giving you something fresh and captivating. Fortunately, Things Will Be Different, the debut feature from writer/director Michael Felker, might be one of the more intriguing entries in the time travel genre in decades.
The film follows brother and sister Joseph (Adam David Thompson) and Sidney (Riley Dandy), who have come together to pull off a robbery. We never learn what their crime entailed, other than Sidney ran out without her bag of cash and Joseph managed to rescue it, but it's clear that neither of them are professional criminals, and that this was more a crime of both opportunity and desperation. They just need one big score to help them out in life. But, not being hardened career criminals how do they expect to hide out from the law? Well, Joseph has a pretty unique safehouse.
Having been given a journal by one of the regulars in the bar he works at, Joseph has a series of instructions that lead the siblings to a remote farmhouse that promises to get them away from the long arm of the law. Inside the farmhouse they follow the book's instructions, and moving the hands on a couple of clocks in a specific order, open a locked door. The door take the two of them to an impossibly large space, where they put a code into an old rotary phone, speak a Latin code phrase, and hang up. Stepping out of the closet they walked into, they're transported to a version of the farmhouse outside of time.
The farmhouse provides them with food, drink, and booze, along with a few pieces of entertainment like a CD player, and an old TV and VHS. Now all the two of them need to do is wait there for two weeks, as that same time passes back in the real world, allowing for them to escape the ensuing police hunt. However, when they try to return home they find the way back barred, and instructions waiting for them. Now they're caught up in a huge plot, one that shows that the house outside of time is merely the tip of the iceberg, and that if either of them ever want to get back to the real world they're going to have to play along with their unseen masters.
Things Will Be Different does not give the audience many answers, and you're going to come away with questions. So, if that's not the kind of thing that you usually enjoy this might not be for you; but for fans of things such as The X-Files, Twin Peaks, or the Remedy video games such as Control or Alan Wake, this is going to be right up your alley. And I'm squarely in that second camp. Felker has a very strong idea of the kind of story that they want to tell, and it's one of mystery and character interaction first and foremost.
Much of the film is dedicated to our lead characters, and there are large parts of the early part of the film, before their plan derails, where we're treated to interesting conversations between the two of them. Their story feels pretty decent, with their less than perfect relationship having a lot of truth to it, and played in such a way that you feel a lot of empathy and care for the two of them. It's clear that Joseph has guilt for his past actions, and Sidney cares a great deal about her young daughter and is willing to do anything to get back to her. There's very real chemistry between the two of them, and the sibling relationship feels very believable; the times where they're laughing and having fun, and the times when they're screaming at each other.
But the film isn't just a character study of two people trapped in a single remote location. This is a sci-fi story. The way that the film handles time travel is done very well, and the use of different places operating on different time in order to communicate with each other, or send the other items to help them is something that I can't really remember having seen a film do before. There are certain elements to the film, such as watching the characters figuring out how to communicate with those that control the farmhouse, and things suddenly changing around them, that feel more like a puzzle game than a movie. You can see the characters beginning to understand things, connecting the dots, and it reminds me of the way you'd progress a video game forward.
I mentioned the game Control earlier in the review, and there were a number of times when watching that this kept popping into my head. The strange science, the mystery organisation, the vintage tech, it makes me think of that universe. And even some of the writing made me think of that too, where you're given half truths, small reveals, and simply have to go along with things and you try and fit what you've just learned into the puzzle you've been building in your mind. I don't know if Felker is a fan of Sam Lake's work, if any of that art inspired this story, but with Lake being one of my favourite creatives my comparison to him is absolutely a badge of honour on my part.
Things Will Be Different sits at an hour and forty minutes in length, and the entire movie flew by for me. Considering how much is squeezed into the film I was surprised at how quickly I reached the end. It felt like what I'd seen was barely scratching the surface, and that there was much more that could have been done. I won't go into specifics so as not to ruin the ending, but it becomes clear at a certain point that there is a lot more in this story that we don't see, and that if we were to see everything this would be a multi-season television series instead of a film, and part of me really wanted that. I wish I could have spent more time here, that I could have learned more about this world and its mysteries. Unfortunately, there is only so much a single film can cover, and I'm happy to end craving more. Like I said, coming away with a load of questions might not be everyone's favourite kind of film experience, but I'm going to be more than happy thinking about this film for weeks to come.
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