This low-budget film out of Canada combines a clever time-travel premise with an abundance of sentimentality. Haley Joel Osment is good as the young time-traveler/scientist, who journeys through time from 2012 to 1946, to meet with the father whom he lost in the same wormhole.
Gillian Anderson is also good as the bereaved wife of a husband whose secret life as a time-traveler she never knew. The plot is unfortunately mired in an unnecessary relationship of Osment's character Erol and his girlfriend, who seeks to persuade him not to take the plunge into the time warp in search of his lost father.
SPOILER ALERT FOLLOWS: A golden opportunity was missed when young Erol meets his father at the moment when he attempts to have a private conversation with Albert Einstein. The father knocks on Einstein's door in Princeton, N.J. in 1946, but Einstein is out for a walk. Incredibly, the filmmakers do not follow through with what could have been a great scene with the iconic scientist.
Some of the best scenes were those of young Osment with Victor Garber's character of Gramps, who is working with him on the time machine. But filled with melodramatic scenes, especially the shocking ending, "I'll Follow You Down" is overwhelmed with maudlin and mundane moments that detract from the excitement of what should have been the single-minded focus of the film: time travel.
Gillian Anderson is also good as the bereaved wife of a husband whose secret life as a time-traveler she never knew. The plot is unfortunately mired in an unnecessary relationship of Osment's character Erol and his girlfriend, who seeks to persuade him not to take the plunge into the time warp in search of his lost father.
SPOILER ALERT FOLLOWS: A golden opportunity was missed when young Erol meets his father at the moment when he attempts to have a private conversation with Albert Einstein. The father knocks on Einstein's door in Princeton, N.J. in 1946, but Einstein is out for a walk. Incredibly, the filmmakers do not follow through with what could have been a great scene with the iconic scientist.
Some of the best scenes were those of young Osment with Victor Garber's character of Gramps, who is working with him on the time machine. But filled with melodramatic scenes, especially the shocking ending, "I'll Follow You Down" is overwhelmed with maudlin and mundane moments that detract from the excitement of what should have been the single-minded focus of the film: time travel.