THINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT

(director/writer: Michael Felker; cinematographer: Carissa Dorson; editors: Michael Felker, Rebeca Marques; music: Jimmy LaValle, Michael A. Muller ; cast: Adam David Thompson (Joseph), Riley Dandy (Sydney); Runtime: 102; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Michael Felker, Jacob Rosenthal, Shane Spiegel; XYZ Films; 2024)

“The bleak movie never aims to be logical.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

First-timer Michael Felker directs and writes this low-budget, high-concept, sci-fi feature film, that’s inspired by Blood Simple (1983) according to the director. It plays out as an offbeat action thriller that sets a strange tone that makes the way its executed and acted better than its implausible story.

The estranged siblings, a drug-dealing brother Joseph (Adam David Thompson) and an impulsive single mom sister Sydney (Riley Dandy), reunite through crime and pull off a robbery and flee to an abandoned rural farmhouse, a safe house. From there they await to time travel to the past to escape the law, in a place that has a manual clock and secret closet.

However a mysterious metaphysical force prevents them from exiting the farmhouse, leaving them trapped on the farm for 14 days. A mysterious voice warns them that an ‘unknown’ enemy is on the way to the farm that they must dispatch in order to escape. Tension mounts as they await the visitor and kill time by talking shit about the past. Both are excellent with firearms, and are armed with high-powered rifles with telescopic sights.
 
The bleak movie never aims to be logical, as it grabs your attention by inundating you with the natural surrounding sounds and the rhythms it creates to give it a strange vibe. I enjoyed it for pushing the boundaries of thrillers to a point in which I felt transported to a different kind of time travel film, one in which the main characters are stuck in the past and need help to become free.

It played at the SXSW Film Festival.

REVIEWED ON 11/25/2024  GRADE: B
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