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film review

I’ll Follow You Down (2014).

Featuring Gillian Anderson, Victor Garber and the grown-up version of The Sixth Sense's Haley Joel Osment, director Richie Mehta's Toronto-based time-travel drama centres around the mysterious disappearance of an accomplished scientist, and his wife and son's struggle for answers.

Ironically, the film suffers from confusing pacing that fails to help the audience establish a sense of timing. Within the first 15 minutes, the movie jumps from the start of the conflict, to three days after the mysterious disappearance, to 12 years into the future without firmly establishing how much time has actually taken place.

Where many time-travel movies such as The Butterfly Effect employ an act-first-reflect-later style of plot, I'll Follow You Down spends most of its time dealing with the ethics, morality and consequences behind the concept of altering time. While this distinctive take on the genre is refreshing, it would be more effective if we cared more about the underdeveloped characters whose lives it affects.

Although it mostly falls flat, I'll Follow You Down does deliver an ending that serves as a satisfying payoff. Call it good timing.

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