‘Things Will Be Different’ Review
Stars: Adam David Thompson, Riley Dandy, Chloe Skoczen, Justin Benson, Sarah Bolger, Jori Felker | Written and Directed by Michael Felker
A strange mix of genres, time travel, estranged family members reuniting, and heist gone wrong thriller, Things Will Be Different is the first feature from writer/director Michael Felker. Felker is best known for his work as an editor on films such as Sunset on the River Styx and all of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead’s features, from Spring through Something in the Dirt.
And that duo’s influence shows up all over the film, they executive produced it, make appearances in it, and most importantly, the film itself shows their influence in the story and how it’s told. So, the more you like their films, the better your chances of liking Things Will Be Different.
The story itself is deceptively simple. Estranged siblings Joseph (Adam David Thompson; A Walk Among the Tombstones, Diverge) and Sidney (Riley Dandy; City of Gold, A Hollywood Christmas) have reunited to pull off a robbery and need a place to lay low, and Joseph has arranged for what he claims is the perfect hideout.
He’s been told of a farmhouse that contains a door to another point in time. They can hide out hidden from the cops and everyone else for a couple of weeks, then return with their loot. But you know it can’t be that simple, and indeed it isn’t. As they prepare to come back, a mysterious entity intercedes. They’re told they’ll have to earn that return ticket by waiting around an unspecified amount of time to kill an unspecified “unwelcome guest”.
Felker never really fills the viewer in on just how time travel works in Things Will Be Different. But as we watch the siblings adjust the hands of clucks like combination locks, light matches in darkened rooms and recite odd phrases into a rotary phone, it feels like an updated version of some arcane ritual for modern witches. And it’s not without a certain weird charm., as is their method of conversing with the entity keeping them there.
The film’s midsection is a little less interesting, however. Watching them start to crack under the pressure and boredom of their situation and snap at each other just felt somewhat tired. Thompson and Dandy do their best with it, and the scenes have a convincing feel to them, but with the reasons for their estrangement as vague as everything else in the film, it really didn’t do much for me.
Things do pick up once their quarry arrives, and the film turns into a nifty little thriller that even gives us a look behind the curtain at their captors. Unfortunately, rather than answer questions, it just raises more of them. I don’t expect a film to spoon-feed its viewers all the answers, but the refusal of Things Will Be Different to tell us anything takes away from what is otherwise an interesting story, at times making it feel like Felker couldn’t figure out the details himself and just skipped over them.
Of course, if you like your films on the cryptic side, that’s going to be a huge plus. Hopefully, others can get past it, though, because Things Will Be Different does feature a pair of excellent performances and some nice moments when it isn’t being too vague for its own good. It’s worth a watch, even if you do end up frustrated that it didn’t live up to its potential.
*** 3/5
Magnet Releasing will open Things Will Be Different in select US theatres and VOD Platforms on October 4th.
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