Greetings again from the darkness. Writer-director Bernardo Britto has delivered a modern-day cinematic rarity: a Science Fiction film without overblown special effects. Time travel is a vital part of the story, but at its core, this is a film about human emotions, and it has quite a message for viewers.
Mary-Louise Parker ("Weeds") stars as Zoya Lowe, a quantum physicist and our story's time traveler. Only this isn't the kind of time traveler you are thinking of. Zoya neither travels back to medieval times nor forward to some future high-tech civilization. See, the magic pills she found as a kid only take her back 5 days. This is less THE TIME MACHINE (1969) and more GROUNDHOG DAY (1993) ... without the laughs or Ned Ryerson.
Zoya has been diagnosed with 'a black hole growing in her chest.' Now, I'm not sure if that diagnosis is an actual medical affliction or rather a metaphor, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is that Zoya has been given a week to live, which means with those pills, she's forced to re-do every day since her diagnosis in hopes of discovering what the pills are and how they work. To do this, she collaborates with Paula (Ayo Edebiri, "The Bear"), a community college science student with access to the campus lab. For some reason, this particular lab hosts an extreme sci-fi secret that Zoya and Paula believe can help solve the mystery.
Part of the gag here is that Zoya must re-live the terminal diagnosis, blow out the candles on her early birthday cake, and then convince Paula to assist over and over again. As Zoya goes through her daily re-dos, the supporting cast around her consists of Carlos Jacott as her husband, Hannah Pearl Utt as her daughter, Eddie Cahill as a brilliant scientist, Fern Katz as her assisted-living mom, and Harris Yulin as her old college professor. We may overdose on the electronic music that plays through most of the movie, but there is a terrific message here - being there for others is so important, and we should focus on what really matters in this all-too-short life.
In theaters and on Digital beginning September 20, 2024.
