Things Will Be Different- SXSW 2024
March 15th, 2024
MOVIE: THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT
STARRING: RILEY DANDY, ADAM DAVID THOMPSON, JUSTIN BENSON, SARAH BOLGER
DIRECTED BY: MICHAEL FELKER
AMovieGuy.com’s RATING: 3 ½ STARS (Out of 4)
A co-worker once asked, “Hey Leo, how come they don’t make more time travel movies these days?” The best answer I could come up with was that time travel will always be a hard subject to get right, so it scares people to take on, or even approach. Back to the Future, Terminator 2, and Looper have been some of the best at getting it right, yet they still get picked to death by viewers willing to dissect. Let me be the first to tell you that Things Will Be Different is the best new time-travel movie in some time. Director Michael Felker, with his first feature, has constructed a tight two-hander, about a brother and sister, stuck in the present, waiting to avoid police, while trying to get back on the right timeline. Things Will Be Different is an expertly crafted and always mysterious science fiction movie that I can’t wait to get back to, in this timeline, or the next.
The story begins at a diner, right outside the woods, where Joseph (Adam David Thompson) waits for his sister Sidney (Riley Dandy), with a bag full of cash and weapons from a bank robbery. The two discuss what their next move is. Sidney is skeptical. Joseph is ready to get out from the open where others can see them. It’s not that there are a lot of people around but they are being chased and there is mystery all around. Has the world ended or have these two been on the run for a long time?
In their paranoia, the pair runs to an abandoned farmhouse. Joseph knows that by turning the face on a cuckoo clock they can enter through a time portal door and hopefully wait until the coast is clear. The question, however, is can they get themselves back, or will messing with time destroy their past or future selves? Either way, the two hunker down, waiting for someone, or something to give them answers. But with most time travel, the waiting is always the hardest part, and so begins the challenges of isolation, paranoia, or sheer terror.
What makes Things Will Be Different work is the story and direction by Felker, which shines brightest with its low-fi approach. The budget may be lower than some, but through the use of tight sets, gorgeous cinematography, and complex characters, everything is elevated. The devices used around the house, including a tape recorder, a phonograph record player, an old tube television, and a rotary phone all become forms of communication between the past and the present. It’s through this communication that the terror for Sidney and Joseph builds, unable to get back to their past, unaware of what can happen to their futures, and terrified of who might be coming to get them in their present. Felker cranks that pressure high and release it slowly through Dandy and Thompson’s layered performances.
It’s not a surprise to learn that Felker has been the editor for the horror and science fiction team of Benson & Moorehead, whose previous films have become the gold standard for great low-budget genre films. This is 2024’s Monolith or The Artifice Girl. With Things Will Be Different it is not just the excellent practical effects and smart screenplay that work best but the complexities of characters at the center. It’s a story about a family. The past mistakes we make and how they test the relationship of a brother and sister. The living together part is easy. It’s the dark family secrets, the unspoken things, and the fear of being stuck in a time loop that drives Things Will Be Different to greater heights. So the next time someone asks where the good time travel movies are, you recommend this one, or else some things just might never change.
THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT WAS A PART OF THE SXSW 2024 FILM FESTIVAL AND IS LOOKING FOR DISTRIBUTION.
3 ½ STARS
Written by: Leo Brady
leo@amovieguy.com
