SXSW 2024: ‘Things Will Be Different’ Review
Time travel films have often interrogated the personal motivations behind applying the technology. More often than not, it’s to right a wrong to find some sense of resolution or closure. The personal reasons that drive characters to utilize an often misunderstood technology or one where consequences are frequently underestimated serve as the backbone of a narrative that can either get convoluted or extremely intimate, depending on how the filmmakers want to approach the concept. Michael Felker’s Things Will Be Different finds the middle ground between both and serves up a heady science fiction delight where the puzzle seems solvable, but the resolution remains at a distance. Grounded and propulsive in its execution, Felker’s feature directorial debut is an exciting and thoughtful handling of loss and the endless pursuit of closure.
It begins with a bag of money and a meeting at a diner. Two estranged siblings - Joseph (Adam David Thompson) and Sidney (Riley Dandy) - head to a safehouse to lay low for two weeks after a robbery places the police hot on their trail. However, the safehouse is not just a place - it’s also a time. The two enter another time period and are bound to the safehouse until the coast is clear. However, not everything is as it seems, and the siblings find their relationship strained as they negotiate with an unknown presence that keeps them from returning to their present time. As a seemingly foolproof plan quickly unravels, Things Will Be Different maintains a steady momentum as characters navigate their tricky situation, and the audience is synchronized with the attempt to escape uncertainty.
What makes Felker’s screenplay immersive is that it understands time travel as a universally misunderstood or murky concept. Much like Rian Johnson’s Looper, it puts the work in to make the mechanics logical but doesn’t let the minutiae of it weigh itself down. There are clear rules put in place as Joseph and Sidney try to escape their predicament, but ultimately their agency in the situation depends on their understanding of the mechanics. The film restricts the characters while giving them a sense of control over their situation through other, more tangible goals. As such, there’s a tension when information is present, such as how Joseph discovered the safehouse in the first place, and any dissemination of information is vital to both the characters and the audience as both try to shine a light on the unknown.
The dedication to keeping the audience thinking about the mechanics of the time travel is also maintained in the audience’s awareness of Joseph and Sidney’s past, which is crucial to understanding their relationship and why they are estranged. Produced by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, fans of their films - such as The Endless and Synchronicity - will feel at home with the character-driven science fiction presented here. It’s the kind of grounded genre film where the unexplainable cannot survive without a relatable entry point to its concepts. For the most part, the brother-sister dynamic is effectively conveyed through Thompson and Dandy’s respective performances, but at times it can feel like Felker’s screenplay wants to hide more of their relationship than the time travel elements, effectively keeping the audience puzzling out the elements of the film that shouldn’t need as much clarification as they are crucial to keeping them invested.
Felker makes up for some obfuscation by creating a tangible world. There’s a physical element to its time travel, both in the tools used to communicate and travel through time and the puzzle pieces that demonstrate an absence. Again, the tactile approach to something unknown is not a new concept and can be felt in the film’s influences, but it is also a way of ensuring the level of immersion that keeps the audience and characters at the same level of awareness. It’s most felt in the clever editing that allows time travel's physical impact to imply a sense of presence not immediately obvious. It’s also a film wrestling with different time periods but is told in a straightforward and linear manner. This helps simplify the mechanics and gives the film a steady pace without getting bogged down.
There may be some rough spots in the handling of Joseph and Sidney’s relationship that mire some of the emotional stakes, but the performances help make up for that, as does a genuine sense of reflection in the screenplay. Every element of world-building is only as powerful as the people interacting with it. Things Will Be Different understands the importance of this, and through its lo-fi sci-fi aesthetic, it lets the confusion that often accompanies time travel be less of a burden to the audience and more palpable to its characters. They interact with the world while we inch closer to a mutual understanding of the predicament. Felker’s feature debut is a strong, rewarding addition to the time travel canon and a prime example of why a DIY approach to science fiction filmmaking can be more enriching than its blockbuster counterparts.
The 2024 edition of the SXSW Film & TV Festival is taking place between March 8th and 16th in Austin, Texas. Find the full 2024 line-up here.
