Writer/Director/Editor Michael Felker knows his way around time-shifting, metaphysical labors of love, having edited Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s Something in the Dirt, Synchronic, The Endless, and Spring. Felker’s feature directorial debut, Things Will Be Different, seamlessly fits into the Benson/Moorhead cinematic universe, introducing a fractured sibling relationship put through the physical and emotional wringer when they play with forces they don’t quite understand.
Estranged siblings Sidney (Riley Dandy, Christmas Bloody Christmas) and Joseph (Adam David Thompson, Vampires vs. The Bronx) fall into old habits like no time has passed at all when they rendezvous at a diner. That’s largely due to Joseph having a large bag of cash grabbed from an armed robbery, and the authorities are rapidly closing in. The siblings quickly make their way to an abandoned farmhouse with instructions on how to escape their current reality. The plan is to wait out the cops from the safety of an alternate timeline, but their plan to escape the law will bend more than just time.
For a lengthy stretch, Felker explores the siblings’ relationship and history as Sidney and Joseph settle into a routine to pass the time while they wait for things to cool off. Dandy and Thompson’s easy banter and chemistry make quick work of building out the siblings’ interiority and lived-in bonds. That they have a tight-knit formation when it comes to dealing with potential threats only further sells Sidney and Joseph’s bond and unshakable. Only when new phenomena and developments arise do the fractures begin to show.
Felker takes a measured approach to doling out exposition, both for the siblings’ history and the phenomenon behind the farm’s vacuum in time and space. It puts thoughtful precedence on exploring the profound love and lingering remorse between brother and sister, then lets the supernatural aspects slowly decimate their carefully curated defenses. The slow simmer eventually reaches a roaring boil as Felker plunges his leads into a mind-bending fight to escape their self-made reality. The meditative familial drama gives way to a sci-fi thriller, and Felker once again demonstrates a knack for knowing how much to reveal and when. There’s a simplicity to the worldbuilding here that works because Felker never overshows his hand.
Complete with a cameo by Justin Benson, who produces alongside Aaron Moorhead, Things Will Be Different looks and feels like a Rustic Films feature in the way that it explores the human experience and relationships against a genre backdrop. Cinematographer Carissa Dorson captures the stunning details and natural beauty of the rural farmland, an atypically expansive yet isolated setting for the claustrophobic time prison Sidney and Joseph find themselves trapped in.
Its narrative structure may not be nearly as intricate as The Endless or even Resolution, regarding its use of time and space, but Felker layers in enough bursts of horror and sci-fi to retain audience investment in his characters’ unique plight. More importantly, the filmmaker’s careful framing of Sidney and Joseph’s story builds to a wholly satisfying conclusion, the precise type of outcome that brings the film’s themes full circle with great impact.
Things Will Be Different is an accomplished, affecting feature directorial debut that smartly uses its time concept to give a pair of morally skewed siblings a chance to rewrite the past for the sake of a better future. It’s in the space in between where Felker effectively tests familial bonds to their limit through genre conventions.
Things Will Be Different made its World Premiere at SXSW. Release info TBD.
The post ‘Things Will Be Different’ SXSW Review – Family Bonds Get Tested in Engaging Sci-Fi Thriller appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
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