Things Will Be Different (2024) #503

 

What kind of world would it be like if people easily believed in the ability of time travel, or rather, a room that could grant time travel with a spell and a phone call? This is the kind of world that "Things Will Be Different" takes place in, and the film is presented in a way that it works. Kept on a small scale with only a handful of characters, this bizarre time twisting movie forces the two main characters, Joseph and Sidney, moments to reflect on the choices they have made. The film presents more than one montage showing the passing of time in such an engaging creative fashion that fits perfectly in a movie centered around time.

Joseph and his sister Sidney have successfully pulled of some kind of heist. Jospeh is waiting patiently, with the money, for her at a small breakfast diner. They leave quickly when they hear sirens in the distance, heading off into the woods. They change clothes and walk off into nature, coming out to a cornfield near a solitary farmhouse. The siblings scare away a group of guys drinking and shooting, which results in a call to the local police. With sirens in the background again, the siblings quickly perform a multi-step ritual that ends in a dark attic like room with a phone. When they emerge, the two are in a different timeline, and all they have to do is wait fourteen days before repeating the process and returning to their timeline. All seems well as they make plans on how to spend their share of the loot, and returning to loved ones, but when it's time to go back to their timeline, they discover that they are trapped.

Learning that they are caught in a time vice, Jospeh and Sidney are forced into an agreement with the powers that be to kill an assassin determined to use the "Time Closet" and disrupt the timeline. Communication is made by a safe and a tape recorder, with only some questions answered. They wait, a very long time, for the assassin to come and when it does, Jospeh and Sidney fight to the death against the mysterious stranger. It all leads to the promise that "Things will be different." 

"Things Will Be Different" is the debut feature film from Michael Felker, the longtime editor for Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead, which might be why they both appear in some capacity in the movie. Riley Dandy carries the movie as Sidney, bringing the emotional weight as the mother longing to be returned to her young daughter. Adam David Thompson also does a great job as Joseph, acting the stoic and caring older brother while trying to redeem himself to Sidney for some past wrong. The two made a great sibling pair and I can't wait what all three do next.