The
space-time continuum is so un-woke. After inventing time travel for her high
school science project, Claudette “CJ” Walker keeps popping back in time, in
order to save her older brother from a problematic police shooting.
Unfortunately, each trip seems to make things worse. You might think a teen
whiz kid would have read enough science fiction to know bad things happen when
you try to alter the past. Yet, she persists anyway in Stefon Bristol’s
Netflix-produced See You Yesterday,
which premiered during the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.
Initially,
Walker and her platonic bestie Sebastian Thomas were only thinking about
scholarships. Unfortunately, she soon realizes it has very practical and
personal applications when her big brother Calvin is fatally shot. Obviously,
this is brand new technology, so there are limits on how far back and how often
they can jump. They will devise some work arounds, but the unforgiving nature
of the space-time continuum remains a cold, hard fact.
The
police shooting is about as potentially divisive catalyst as you can imagine,
but Bristol depicts it in less abrasive and polarizing terms than viewers will
probably expect. Nevertheless, the police in Yesterday are still basically clichés, with no real individuality.
Frankly, the film would have been more compelling if the cops in question were
also shown to be more-or-less decent, but were driven by misunderstandings and
circumstance to commit a fatal mistake, making it a tragedy all the way around.
Nonetheless,
Yesterday has a surprise cameo that
will win over any fan of time travel science fiction, even if they are
card-carrying members of Patrolmen’s Benevolent. More importantly, the two
young stars, Eden Duncan-Smith and Dante Crichlow are an extraordinarily
winning and charismatic on-screen duo. Honestly, Crichlow’s agents should be
pitching him to be the live action Miles Morales (from Spider-Verse), because he can totally combine teen angst and
science nerd cred. The same is true for Jonathan Nieves, who steals a few
scenes as their classmate with a talent for circuitry, who makes no secret of
his crush on Walker.
There
is indeed a lot of logic-defying scientific double-talk in Yesterday, but Duncan-Smith and Crichlow pull it off like champs. Bristol
also keeps raising the stakes and widening the scope of the temporal
disruptions in ways that have a potent sense of tragic inevitability. Nacho
Vigalondo’s Timecrimes is still the
gold standard of time-looping head trips, but Yesterday can claim some of the sharpest written time travel
business in several years.
It
is refreshing to see a film in which teens are smart rather than stupid. It is
also nice to see teens who really look like teens. In terms of the depiction of
cops in Yesterday, it might be productive
to view it in conjunction with the DC
Noir pilot, based on the short fiction of George Pelecanos, which also
screened at Tribeca. Ever-reliable character actor Jay O. Sanders portrays a
veteran patrol officer, who personally knows the residents on his beat and
probably understands the dynamics of the urban neighborhood better than the
young man who raises the ire of a local drug dealer. Is it fair to expect
perfection from peace officers every second of every night, year after year,
regardless of the stress and dangers they encounter?
So,
watch both films and get two perspectives. See
You Yesterday will be easier to find in the short term. It releases May 17th
on Netflix, following its screenings at this year’s Tribeca.
