Time travel stories are often about regret, and it should be no surprise that there has been an escalation in such stories in novels and movies given the times we live in. The subgenre hasn’t reached the ubiquity of zombies as a narrative phenomenon, but storytellers are clearly in pursuit of second chances on grand and personal scales. Co-written and directed by Jeremy LaLonde with the film’s lead Jonas Chernick sharing the writing credit, James vs His Future Self offers more of the latter in an uneven story about lost love that is ultimately saved by its cast.
Chernick plays James, a theoretical physicist a few notches below Sheldon Cooper on the scale of social ineptitude who is obsessed with time travel due to the death of his parents. He is the type of workaholic that forgets to eat while consumed by a theory, spends days marking up notebooks, chalkboards and whiteboards and takes every significant relationship in his life for granted. When we meet him that number is down to two, his sister Meredith (Tommie-Amber Pirie) and his platonic girlfriend Courtney (Cleopatra Coleman). A genius when it comes to the core functions of the universe, emotional intelligence eludes James until a guru enter his life, Jimmy (Daniel Stern), his older self.
The older Jimmy is on a mission from the future, but instead of planning to execute the infant version of some mass murderer, he is here to save James from himself. Realizing his obsession with time travel hasn’t yielded the achievement he expected, Jimmy wants to end it all by steering his younger self toward Courtney, the woman he currently loves and will love unrequitedly for decades. James’ future is lonely and heartbreaking and knowing that Jimmy wants to turn away from a scientific breakthrough that will change the world to achieve his heart’s desire. This endeavor would be easier if he didn’t have to play Cyrano to James’ stammering Christian, at least for a time because the more inept his younger self proves himself the more active a role Jimmy takes.
LaLonde and Chernick manage to ring some surprises out of the canard of time travel, mostly in the form of Jimmy. Stern plays his character as a broken man full of rage and disappointment who desperately wants all his knowledge of the past rewritten. The actor’s innate comic goofiness is sublimated by a real sense of menace augmented by a paunch and an unruly beard. He looks like Alan Moore on a morning when somebody felt brave enough to ask about Watchmen. Stern’s performance is engaging enough that it overshadows any thoughts about the inherent paradoxes created by time travel mined in every film on the subject from Terminator to Avengers: Endgame. You just want him to get what he wants.
Unfortunately, where the creative team found juice in one trope it proved just how exhausted the hero’s journey of the man-child learning to grow up has become. His sister is his caretaker and that’s their only real connection, and Courtney fills that role while at work with James. His genius is meant to encourage us to forgive his ineptitudes, but Courtney is no less intelligent and she manages to dress like an adult and act the part in her professional and private life. For whatever gifts he possesses as an actor, James is just not that interesting in this proto-Jimmy state, and Chernick withers when sharing the screen with Stern. If anything, you find yourself rooting for Jimmy to find some happiness in his past because you don’t see any glimpses of who he will be in James. If the title sets up a grudge match, you pick sides very quickly.
As is often the case in a man-child film, the greatest suspension of disbelief involves the inevitable romance. Cleopatra Coleman absolutely charms as Courtney, and while she speaks the truth when she says it’s hard to date when you’re smarter than most of the people you meet, you cannot help but believe someone exists for her outside of James. Beautiful and funny, she also delivers the best line in the film during the breakup that launches the film’s denouement. To the credit of the creative team, they have created a great character–they just failed to make James her equal.
James vs His Future Self offers few surprises but features performances that are endearing and moving. There has got to be another way to tell such stories, and that has to begin by creating lead characters who know how to do their own laundry and can even cook a meal. If not, no matter how many tropes you dress it up in, these films will be little more than wasted time.
The post James vs His Future Self appeared first on Spectrum Culture.