Things Will Be Different

Joseph (Adam David Thompson) and Sidney (Riley Dandy) meet up at a diner. They are both armed and carrying a bag of money. They go to a pre-selected farm house. There is a specific procedure of changing the clocks, opening a door, and dialing a phone in the dark. They arrive back to the house which is fully stocked. Their plan is to stay there for two weeks and wait out the cops.

This is a low-budget high-concept sci-fi crime drama. I like the general premise and the curious door procedure to start the story. The problem is that it doesn't entice the audience to invest in these two characters. These are not famous faces and they don't have any exposition. Once things start going wrong, the rules are not clear. Nothing is that clear in this movie. The reveal is the reveal. I expected something like it. It's fine. The overall execution is a bit lacking.

Michael Felker was the editor for a number of Benson & Moorhead films. They're something truly special if you haven't seen them. Unfortunately Benson & Moorhead have been wasting their talents on comic book slop the past few years, and indefinitely into the future. With A24 being (almost) the only company doing anything creative in cinema, it's pretty obvious Felker wanted to make a B&M film. Good on him!

The results are... not great. Most aspect of this movie are done very well, but the screenplay is weak and goes to shambles about 2/3 of the way through. It's not even that it becomes contrived or illogical, actions and situations defy any explanation. Imagine someone getting shot at, so they go inside and start making breakfast. This is an exaggeration and doesn't happen, but it's that kind of disconnect that becomes prevalent. Events are barely held together. People seemingly teleport from place to place. Some of it is explainable in retrospect, but a lot of it isn't. Or the explanation is insufficient and doesn't answer all the questions. Where B&M movies have an air of mystique, this is just messy.

The entire movie kind of feels like the intro to a larger story. Like we're looking at a small part of something REALLY interesting, but we'll never see the whole. Imagine if The Endless was remade to just be the guy at the barn. Just imagine how small and limited the movie would feel, knowing the bigger picture. That's what this feels like.

The actors were great, the script not so much. I was bored and falling to sleep watching this dull movie. Confusing storyline that made you not care about the two leading characters. A brother and sister duo hide out in a farmhouse in a psychological thriller masquerading as a horror film. The brother and sister are stuck in a time loop and they can't seem to escape this farmhouse, the movie goes on and on as it tries to explain to the viewers the premise of the characters and film. But as the film ends you still feel like what in the hell did I just watch. A mishmash of me praying will this movie ever end.

The basic premise of TWBD is that two siblings, Joseph (Adam David Thompson) and Sidney (Riley Dandy), are robbers on the run from the law. They proceed through the woods to a farmhouse. They enter the house and by following some instructions in a notebook, they are able to exit through a closet door and reemerge, as it were, in a different time (but same farmhouse) to wait out the police for fourteen days.

So far, so good. And the cinematography (by Carissa Dorson) makes the most of the rural location.

Of course, Joseph and Sidney end up getting stuck in the farmhouse. They discover that the location actually functions as the "property" of a mysterious guide who speaks to them through a tape-recorder and is willing to help get them back to the present if they complete a specific task: the elimination of a mysterious (third) intruder. It is only toward the end that we learn just how fraught that task actually is.

TWBD does its best work through visuals: not just the facial expressions of the two principal actors, but the flashbacks to childhood (blurred images of a parental figure at a piano); the various (presumably alcoholic) beverages and vintage glassware that are a constant feature of TWBD; the trees, fields, and hills of the rural Midwest; the strange photographs, paintings and tchotchkes of the absent prior owners; etc. A second viewing is almost required to make sense of the visual displays that kaleidoscope and change constantly.

That said, the film is not as friendly in linking the narrative together for the viewer. But the thread is there. And there is a discernible conclusion, which in my view has to do with "breaking" a cycle of decisions, and the sacrifice required to do that.

A lot of viewers appear turned off by the temporal twists and non-obvious narrative. However, I think you might like this feature if you like, for example, Flanagan's own debut ("Abstentia"), the films of Isaac Ezban or Moorhead & Benson's "Synchronic" or "The Endless." (Benson has a part near the end. It is easy to see why he agreed, given the subject matter. Well, that and the fact that he is one of the Executive Producers. :-) )

I will certainly be looking out for Michael Felker's next film. This was an impressive debut.

The concept for Things Will Be Different (2024) sounded promising and definitely piqued my interest. Movies involving time travel can often be hit or miss, and unfortunately, this one missed the mark for me. The two lead actors do a decent job portraying their characters, and the movie is beautifully shot with an impressive visual style. However, the story and pacing are where it falls short.

The film raises numerous questions but only loosely answers a few. It takes nearly an hour for anything significant to happen, and even then, the movie remains barely engaging. This concept might have worked better as a short film or with a faster-paced script featuring more tension-filled scenes and action. Instead, the execution is too slow-paced, making it feel much longer than it actually is. Slow-paced movies can work when they don't feel slow, but in this case, you feel every minute.

Ultimately, the concept promised much more than the final result could deliver, so I can't recommend this one. [4.4/10]