By far the best of the three Other Worlds Austin titles I was able to see, Time Lapse comes strongly recommended, which is nice, because it appears to actually be getting a stateside release within the next few months. Written and directed by Bradley King (his feature film debut), Time Lapse is a high concept indie sci-fi gem with a time travel hook and a fun-filled tone that still veers into dark territory (not an Under Siege 2 reference unless you want it to be) when it needs to.
Getting the worst parts out of the way right off the bat, the ensemble acting in Time Lapse isn’t the greatest. Some smaller roles and even occasionally the lead roles have moments of flat line delivery which, while pulling me out of the film, were more than covered over by the success of so many other elements of the movie. The film also feels like it drags some in the middle, but again, this gripe is overridden when the climax amps up and the film ultimately ends on a highly satisfactory note.
Time Lapse’s set up is a big part of the fun, but this is also the type of film where execution is everything, and a hook this complex could easily have derailed into nonsense. Fortunately King seems to have taken the time to account for most of the various inevitable time travel paradoxes and issues that can crop up when putting together the screenplay along with B.P. Cooper. But I digress: The set up involves 3 roommates who live in an apartment with a large front window who discover that their neighbor across the courtyard has built a bizarre camera which has been taking pictures of their living room for months. But the pictures it takes show events happening 24 hours in the future, and their neighbor is missing. It doesn’t take long for our protagonists to be using their ability to photograph the future for their own financial gain, and the situation only devolves from there.
One of my biggest gripes with high concept thrillers is that character development almost always goes clear out the window in order to have time to explain everything else or make the complex mechanics all make sense. And while Time Lapse’s characters aren’t exactly three dimensional, I’d say they manage to get a solid two dimensions to them. And that their personalities and stories all have a big impact on the compelling hook helps as well. Matt O’Leary (Brick, The Lone Ranger) plays Finn, who is ostensibly the main character here, or at the very least the audiences guide through the story. Finn is a painter who happens to keep his canvas in the front room where the camera can see it. There’s a conflict of the creative process when Finn starts seeing his own work 24 hours in advance that allows for some great exploration. Finn is dating Callie (Danielle Panabaker, Friday The 13th ’09, Girls Against Boys), who has been trying to get Finn more connected to their relationship in the recent months. This isn’t helped by the fact that third roommate Jasper (George Finn, who has perhaps the most challenging and unbelievable role to play in the film and who falls flat in his performance on occasion) clearly harbors feelings for Callie and has a bit of a gambling problem.
Between Finn’s creative crises, Jasper’s gambling compulsions, and Callie’s “closer to the chest” motivations, there’s plenty of drama to mine as the time travelling photo machine across the courtyard continues to pull the characters head first into their seemingly unchangeable fates. I won’t reveal any further plot details. And I assure you that what I have revealed is only the tip of the iceberg as far as the set up goes. And regardless of the set up, what excites me most about Time Lapse is the execution. Filled with humor borne out of genuine characters, tension caused by the sci-fi hook, and satisfying resolutions to all kinds of various conflicts and potential paradoxes, Time Lapse is ultimately a very successful indie sci-fi thriller. What further set it apart was the remarkable production design. In what is largely a single location thriller, which could have been visually boring, the art team came together and created an amazing design for the ever-present camera which has a bit of a steam punk feel to it. And the layout of the front room with the large window and all the other locations and rooms in which the film takes place feels well-planned, perfectly decorated and lived in, and just goes above and beyond what most low budget films attempt.
Bradley King is a writer/director to keep an eye out for. If he can pull off a tight screenplay like this, direct it himself, and get the production value out of it that he was able to on what was almost certainly an extremely small budget, then I absolutely look forward to seeing what he does next. And in a Q & A after the film at Other Worlds Austin, he mentioned that the film does have a planned VOD release in the US sometime in March, so if this sounds like something you’d be interested in checking out, it won’t be too long until you can. No time travel movie is perfect. But rarely does such an ambitious indie sci-fi thriller come along that so confidently succeeds in what it is trying to do and keeps you hooked right up until the final frames.
And I’m Out.