Michael Felker’s Things Will Be Different is a fascinatingly engaging take-on the time travel movie. Siblings on the run, having committed a robbery, find themselves in an abandoned farmhouse that transports them to a new time and space. As metaphysical forces trap them there, cut off from anyone except a mysterious voice on the radio, the estranged pair initially bond before domestic traumas bleed with their extraordinary situation and they threaten to tear each other apart.
While this is Felker’s directorial debut, he comes with a thick strand of modern sci-fi pedigree, having been Benson and Moorhead’s go-to editor in recent years with the duo’s lo-fi sensibilities bleeding into Things Will Be Different, as well as a mumblecore sense of humour and profound sense of existential dread. It’s a strange concoction but one that is enticing, if rather perplexing.
Much is placed on the central duo in the film and they have an easy chemistry as well as an ability to carry the weightier moments. Having stolen proceedings in Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022), Riley Dandy is a fiercely compelling performer, simmering with a rage that threatens to boil over throughout. Adam David Thompson is a quieter turn, desperation seeping into his performance as well as a sense of loss.
Visually low-key, there are moments where Felker shows a strong visual eye, especially a late in the day fog drenched confrontation. Jimmy LaVelle's and Michael A. Muller's score creates a soundscape that wraps around the film, building tension throughout.
Equal parts puzzling, profound and moving, Things Will Be Different may fit comfortably into a recent indie sci-fi movement, but it manages to distinguish itself, reaching for and achieving deeply moving moments. Your mileage with this work may come down to how much you can handle brain-scrambling multiverse dramas, but if this sounds like you’re kind of thing then you are in for a treat from this compelling debut.
4 Screams out of 5
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