Crew
Director/Screenplay – Michael Felker, Producers – Michael Felker, Jacob Rosenthal & Shane Spiegel, Photography – Carissa Dorson, Music – Jimmy Lavalle & Michael A. Muller, Visual Effects Supervisor – Aaron Moorhead, Production Design – Zachary Thomas. Production Company – Last Life Productions.
Cast
Adam David Thompson (Joseph), Riley Dandy (Sidney), Chloe Skoczen (The Visitor), Justin Benson (The Vice Grip Left), Sarah Bolger (The Vice Grip Right)
Plot
Brother and sister Joseph and Sidney are on the run from the police with stolen money. Joseph has been given directions to take refuge at a farmhouse. The directions tell them to wind the clocks in a certain direction, which unlocks a door. Just as the police near, the door transports them to the same house at another time. The mysterious controllers give them instructions via tape recordings from the future that allow them to dialogue back and forth. The controllers want to Wipe them but agree to give the two of them a chance as long as they lay in wait and kill a mysterious visitor who will arrive at the house.
Things Will Be Different was a feature-length directorial debut for Michael Felker who had previously made several short films. The film comes executive produced by directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who have made similar films of their own with Spring (2014), The Endless (2017), Synchronic (2019) and Something in the Dirt (2022), among others. Felker has worked as an editor on all of Benson and Moorhead’s films since 2014 and was an associate producer on their first film Resolution (2012). In addition, Benson plays the male character at the end called The Vice Grip Left, while Moorhead conducts the visual effects for the film.
There have been a number of increasingly sophisticated variants on Time Travel film since the mid-2000s dealing with advanced themes like time paradox, branching timelines and multiverses (that is to say, the ones from theoretical physics rather than what Marvel Comics seem to think they are). See the likes of Timecrimes (2007), The Infinite Man (2014), Predestination (2014), Black Hollow Cage (2017), In the Shadow of the Moon (2019) and Beyond the Infinite: Two Minutes (2020).
I was immediately very impressed with what Michael Felker was doing with Things Will Be Different. We are thrown into a situation with the brother and sister on the run – they will be the two characters on screen for almost the entire running time of the film. Moreover, Felker gives us only teasing hints of what is going on – it is never explained, for instance, what they are on the run from (some robbery involving a bag of money is all we ever told). There are even less clues about the nature of the farmhouse and it is some time in before we understand that it exists displaced in time.
The film comes with a non-commercial pace – in the sense that it is not driven by dramatics (in the early stages at least) but rather by quiet observational detail of the boredom experienced by Adam David Thompson and Riley Dandy. The two actors have a great grasp on their characters and strike up a fantastic rapport, which makes these sections work extremely well.
Things Will Be Different becomes fascinatingly cryptic from about the point that Adam and Riley find the recordings in the safe – where they record their question and then hit play to find the answer to their question waiting them, all because the tape has been pre-recorded by people ahead in time. Or when Riley Dandy tries to break down the door and a sign warning her not to appears nailed back up every time she tears the board down. There are cryptic mentions of the left hand and right hand that appear to be something to do with branching pathways – but it is never made clear what these mean and how they connect up with the various Right/Left Vice Grips we meet at the end. The film leaves the mechanics of its time travel – like where they are and how events can remain random and unpredicted – wilfully cryptic.
Despite its slow burn beginning, Things Will Be Different holds you to it with the strength of the characters and actors and the cryptic fascination with what is going on. By the time that the film gets to the mysterious masked figure running around, it develops quite a strong vibe of Timecrimes, albeit one that is far more enigmatic and everything slots less neatly into place. All of that said, Michael Felker brings all of the threads together beautifully at an ending that hits right like a shot dead between the eyes.
Trailer here