Relax, I’m from the Future: Time Is a Blob, not a Line!

By John Kirk

Rating: B+

I’ve never been a fan of time travel as a premise for a science fiction story but Relax, I’m From the Future puts a more… well, relaxed spin on the well-worn sci-fi trope.

But it isn’t so much of a sci-fi story, more of an absurdist’s approach to the whole paradoxical nature of the concept. It’s a film that gives us permission to get to the point where we are allowed to say, ‘To hell with it all’ and accept the story for how things turn out instead of dwelling on it.

I like that approach much better and that’s the secret of its success.

You see, the explanation for the paradoxes generated by a story about time travel is that if you look at it from a linear perspective, events that precede others can prevent what is to come.

According to our time traveller Casper (Rhys Darby), time is more like this: when we approach those events and change them, instead of generating multiple lines, it just all gets absorbed into one mushy blob and the resulting eventuality is still singular in nature, just more amorphous.

Read our interview with Relax, I’m From the Future’s writer-director

I find that entirely comforting and it certainly makes for a more entertaining story. Casper, our time traveller from the future, arrives in Toronto armed only with his memories and a whack-load of enthusiasm. There’s no futuristic doo-dads or gizmos, just him, a wetsuit and a great deal of anticipation. Excited to see things happen in the now, he approaches people and events with a barely restrained level of excitement and a hidden agenda that doesn’t become fully known until the latter half of the film.

During his adventures, he enlists the help of Holly (Gabrielle Graham), a free-spirited part-time music producer/bouncer who takes mercy on the pitifully forlorn Casper and to her advantage, discovers that he’s the real deal.

Of course, when she eventually realizes that Casper has decided to hang out with her because, historically, she doesn’t matter to the future, it’s a little off-putting. Still, not enough to keep her from using his knowledge of sporting events and their outcomes to make a better living for herself. After all, foreknowledge is one of the fun aspects of time-travel.

Darby as Casper has a delightfully bouncy gait to his performance, almost puppy-like in his acceptance and enjoyment of the past. His awkward encounters with senior citizens, librarians, and even chronically high store clerks are enjoyable and even adorable.

Graham’s performance is slightly wooden in some moments; Holly has complex demands to her character. Tough, but still regretful of the times when she could have cared more, she’s the reluctant hero who puts aside her own wants to do the right thing. She has an extreme emotional range to cover and is the perfect accomplice to the happy-go-lucky Casper.

Even being pursued by Doris (Janine Theriault), a ruthless hunter from the future, doesn’t diminish Casper’s positivity. His mission still seems to be selfless and worth the risk. But when he takes a single pleasure for himself in visiting Percy (Julian Richings), a morose waiter at a diner, we see things start to go sideways and Casper’s real motivation for visiting the past comes to light.

There’s a slightly discernible belief in this film that regardless of one’s selfish desires, the welfare of others, or even balancing the future, things will work out. While Casper presents himself as a fun, history-loving traveller who claims to only want to preserve the history of the 20th and 21st centuries, he’s really out for himself. His selfish desire to visit Percy, an individual with more influence on the future of humanity, already threatens changes the time-traveler didn’t realize. While conflict ensues, it doesn’t really matter.

However, it’s hardly conflict that communicates tension, anxiety or even a sense of concern. As I said, in this film, the prevailing perception of time is that eventually everything works out. Time, or the mushy blob, absorbs the rogue elements and the eventual direction that time flows in is in the way it was meant to all along. It’s not just a sense of pre-destination, but more of a faith in a natural order that promises all will work out in the end instead of survival of the fittest.

Isn’t that comforting?

Relax, I’m from the Future. Directed by Luke Higginson. Starring Rhys Darby, Gabrielle Graham, Julian Richings, and Janine Theriault. In select theatres in Toronto, Vancouver, Sudbury, Hamilton, and Victoria October 6, with more to be announced.