It's funny to use the word 'scripted' about a movie, but that's the term that came to mind.
"I'll Follow You Down" is a story about a loving husband and father that went missing in the year 2000 and that forever affected his wife and son. The movie picks up again in 2012 with the widow, Marika (Gillian Anderson), and the son, Erol (Haley Joel Osment), trying to continue on with life until Erol's grandfather, Sal (Victor Garber), tries to convince Erol that they can undo the loss of his father.
Undoing, fixing, correcting, changing the past: the prime motive for ALL time travel, so what's new? Nothing, except that the reasons and the drivers for traveling in the past were so concocted. Along with very overtly forced causes the movie had an overly simplistic message: family or work, you must choose.
I don't know what annoyed me more; the ham fisted manner of writing in a reason for time travel or the message that a person must choose work or their family. Both premises have been done multiple times and a lot better. The first premise--altering the past--is completely overdone. The second premise--choosing work over family--is overdone as well but in this instance it was done in an elementary way. Somehow we are led to believe that anyone that spends a lot of time focusing on his work, however important it may be, will lose his family; and that is bad. In essence, all of those great inventors, scientists and innovators that help changed humanity had terrible family lives.
The movie started off with so much promise then it fizzled. Haley Joel Osment was not very convincing or compelling and the script didn't help him any. I was waiting to see how they could take this entire concept in a new direction and they just couldn't.
"I'll Follow You Down" is a story about a loving husband and father that went missing in the year 2000 and that forever affected his wife and son. The movie picks up again in 2012 with the widow, Marika (Gillian Anderson), and the son, Erol (Haley Joel Osment), trying to continue on with life until Erol's grandfather, Sal (Victor Garber), tries to convince Erol that they can undo the loss of his father.
Undoing, fixing, correcting, changing the past: the prime motive for ALL time travel, so what's new? Nothing, except that the reasons and the drivers for traveling in the past were so concocted. Along with very overtly forced causes the movie had an overly simplistic message: family or work, you must choose.
I don't know what annoyed me more; the ham fisted manner of writing in a reason for time travel or the message that a person must choose work or their family. Both premises have been done multiple times and a lot better. The first premise--altering the past--is completely overdone. The second premise--choosing work over family--is overdone as well but in this instance it was done in an elementary way. Somehow we are led to believe that anyone that spends a lot of time focusing on his work, however important it may be, will lose his family; and that is bad. In essence, all of those great inventors, scientists and innovators that help changed humanity had terrible family lives.
The movie started off with so much promise then it fizzled. Haley Joel Osment was not very convincing or compelling and the script didn't help him any. I was waiting to see how they could take this entire concept in a new direction and they just couldn't.