Submitted by Indonesia: Sore, Wife from the Future

Jonathan Riady is single, but he is romancing a married woman. Yet, she is not being unfaithful, thanks to the paradox of time-travel. The titular Sore wants to reform all her future husband’s bad habits that contributed to his early demise. However, she eventually realizes the drinking and smoking were only symptoms of a deeper issue. Ironically, considering she is a time-looping time-traveler, Sore might be running out of time to help the once-and-future love-of-her-life heal himself in director-screenwriter Yandy Laurens’ Sore: Wife from the Future, Indonesia’s official best international feature submission.

When Sore arrives, Riady is an Indonesian expat in Croatia, engaged to the very wrong Elsa. He has not yet met Sore, so he is understandably surprised to wake up next to her. Blowing up his relationship with Elsa is always the first and easiest thing he does. Then she picks the right pictures out of his archive for a proposal that jumps starts his career as a fine art photographer. However, getting him to stop drinking and smoking are always trickier.

Unfortunately, each loop inevitably reaches a point when Sore realizes she has failed once again to “save” Riady. At that stage, her nose starts to bleed, she passes out, and wakes up back at the start of the loop again. At least that is how it always seems to work. The future Ms. Riady doesn’t really know the rules and principles of time travel any better than we do. This is definitely more of a magical realism time travel, in the tradition of Somewhere in Time, which is also a good tonal comparison. However, Laurens’ cleverly makes a connection to the North Pole, which has no time zone.

Wife from the Future was a big hit domestically, maybe because local audiences were familiar with Laurens’ web series that his film was adapted from. While Dion Wiyoko reprised his original role of Riady, Sheila Dara Aisha replaced another thesp as his time-traveling wife. That is bad luck for the previous Sore, but there is no denying Aisha has a heck of a screen presence throughout the film. It is a quiet performance, but she definitely conveys both passion and angst.

Frankly, Riady is often annoyingly self-absorbed, but Wiyoko still lands his big, dramatic third act turning points. Goran Bogdan supplies some nicely restrained comic relief as Riady’s agent Karlo. Yet, some of the most memorable moments come from Livio Badurina, who portrays Marko, the dress-maker, who employs Sore during an especially frustrating loop. Frankly, he pretty much delivers the film’s primary takeaway—that people can change, but they must want to of their own accord, which is actually quite wise.

Sore undeniably focuses on its central romantic relationship, but the fantastical elements are never far from view. Extremely accessible for general audiences, Sor would pair up well with either If Cats Disappeared from the World for serious cineastes or 50 First Dates for rom-com middle-of-the-roaders. It deserves to be a dark horse for International Oscar consideration. Highly recommended, Sore: Wife from the Future also currently streams on Letterboxd’s new Video Store (which was a bit a coup for the recently launched platform).