I’m going for a good film, bad film rhythm with these reviews. So we’re on the good film part of the cycle and I’m going to go somewhat obscure this time, with what I consider a quiet little gem.
FAQ About Time Travel (2009) is, unsurprisingly, a Science Fiction comedy, but unlike a lot of Science fiction comedies you’ll find out there it doesn’t make fun of science fiction. It makes fun with it. That’s an important difference. Taking the ideas and tropes built up around time travel over the years and having a laugh with them. Nerds, geeks and “Imagineers” are in on the joke not the butt of it.
This is anti-Big Bang theory. It doesn’t play to the lowest common denominator. Instead it’s clever, intelligent humour that pays off the viewer’s attention and their interest. Rather than bombard you with gags at a dozen a minute, hoping one will make you laugh, it builds up and earns it’s payoffs. Maybe that was it’s biggest flaw. It asks you to think. Perhaps that’s why it wasn’t as successful as it could have been. Instead, much like Clue (1985), it’s slowly building a cult fanbase. A slow burn rather than a quick flash.
What’s the film about? It’s difficult to explain without giving spoilers, and that’s something I don’t want to be doing. I want you to go and watch it. It’s easily available to download and if you like speculative fiction I can’t recommend this enough. That doesn't mean I won’t try.
The film mostly takes place in a pub where our hero, Ray played by Chris O’Dowd, is with his two mates discussing hollywood’s shortcomings over a drink. Ray has just been fired from his job at a theme park for taking things too seriously. He is very much the stereotypical nerd. Overly obsessed with Time travel and space ships, trapped in a crappy job. Science Fiction is his only real escape. His closest friends, Toby and Pete, are also social outcasts and while they don’t necessarily get along all the time they get along with other people even less.
Their boring, mundane real lives are interrupted when they get caught up in a Time travel adventure of their very own. Basically there is a “Time leak”, a hiccup in the very fabric of space time, in the men’s toilets. Go into the toilet, leave and find yourself somewhen else. Apparently completely at random. This leads to all sorts of mess, with at one point about three or four different versions of the same three guys hiding from themselves as they all try to get back to when they belong. All made that much more complicated because in one of the futures they accidentally visit they’re all dead!
What’s impressive is that it all holds together, often when dealing with time travel nonsense you watch, or read it, two or three times and it falls apart. Eventually not making any sense at all. Not because it can’t, but because the writer never thought it through. Everyone here took painstaking effort to map everything out, make sure it worked. Not handwaving anything away and establishing how it could work.
There’s an old adage that says to do comedy well you have be serious about it. Well they were serious about this and they did a fantastic job. It was obviously made by genre fans for genre fans, if only because of the shear amount of name dropping in jokes they litter the film with. The biggest and most important is Ray himself.
Amongst the references to things like Doctor Who, Firefly / Serenity, THEM! and even Bill & Ted their are at least two legendary speculative fiction writers heavily referenced, if you know what to look for. First is Ray Bradbury, among his great works including the Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 he also wrote the short A Sound of Thunder, which has the now well known twist of stepping on a single butterfly in the past causing massive changes in the present. As well as Rey’s name there are multiple butterflies shown and referenced during the film, a constant warning of the dangers and responsibilities of time travel.
The other literary giant and icon of the industry that is referenced, and the reason why I’m doing this review now, is Harlan Ellison. Well known for being cantankerous, abrasive and despising compromise Ellison was almost as famous for his personality as well as his work. One of his most passionate and long running arguments was that science fiction should be referred as such, and not by the short hand ‘Sci-Fi’ as, to him, that meant nothing. Throughout the film Ray corrects his friend Pete whenever he uses the term.
Now Ellison died last week, and that’s another point I have to acknowledge. FAQ was the last project for Director Gareth Carrivick who sadly died a year after finishing the film.
FAQ about Time Travel is a great film that deserves a lot more praise than it gets, and a lot more people should see it. It’s not perfect, it takes a little too long to get going at first and you can see where they had to cut corners due to the extremely small budget, but it is very good and a little gem for nerds and imagineers like myself.
IMDB:- 7.1 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes:- 40%
My Score 8 out of 10
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