Perhaps intriguing on a conceptual level, too much of this dreary film unfolds without conviction. Opening with an airline crash, director Anderson introduces a note of procedural drama in the crash investigation scenes only to, sadly, not follow it through. Indeed, the actual process of such investigation is fascinating, although no-one in the film seems to have any faith in its ability to sustain the drama and so immediately diffuse it by developing the Ladd storyline instead and taking the film into its time-travel ambiguities. These never seem more than a gimmick and the film ultimately suffers from a general aura of indifference. The idea that events in the present can hurtle the future towards apocalypse is not unusual in time travel films, although Anderson seems intent on implying the dystopia that awaits mankind in the future as inevitable, with Kristofferson and Ladd left to find what hope there is left for the continuation of the species. Such is Kristofferson’s thematically undeveloped plight as a man blinded by love (or infatuation) who seeks, like Travanti (whose character is underused except as plot contrivance), to perhaps solve the riddle of time. Thus, he moves from a job in which he must reconstruct the past to having an active role in shaping a perfect future. Indeed, it is this riddle which intrigues Anderson, who dedicates most of his creative energies to the repetition of the meeting between Ladd and Kristofferson.
Where the film does have interest thus is in the relationship between these two leads, essentially seen twice, once partly unfolding before the camera and then repeated in greater detail when Ladd realizes she must go back in time, again. This allows Anderson to self-reflexively comment on the “truth” of any filmed event and is intriguing, if not original. Thus, the details withheld in the first instance are elaborated on with more care in the second, as the sense of urgency now underlines a character that in the first instance seemed merely odd and unaccountable. The idea that a narrative can re-visit a filmed scene and re-invest it with new significance is a bold concept, evident of film’s capacity to circle back on itself, the one moment where the movie’s execution matches its thematic emphasis. Anderson is most intrigued by the opportunity to re-align audience sympathies through the expansion of a single scene the audience believed they were done with – a technique that has also influenced the style of Quentin Tarantino, who often circles around events seen from differing perspectives, continually expanding on them. There are layers of self-reflexivity in these scenes if one looks for them but they cannot be dramatically sustained by the surrounding narrative, which in popular terms is “hokey”, arguably offensive in its subtext relating to physical perfection, and often simply risible. read more