Time and Again
2016 · 14m · Ireland
Directed by Aidan Largey
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, sci-fi
Tones: melancholic, tender, whimsical
A child genius enlists his best friend to build a time machine in a foolhardy attempt to escape his distant father and connect with the mother he never knew. Told with humorous narration, the summer-long project becomes a small-town meditation on grief, family, and friendship.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
The time machine is a red herring—Largey knows exactly what he's doing, burying genuine heartbreak under whimsy and narration that's doing the opposite of what it pretends. It's the kind of bait-and-switch that actually earns its sentiment, which is rare enough to notice.
A formally assured coming-of-age that knows its debts to the tradition—there's Spielberg in the backyard adventure, a touch of Kaufman in the tonal dissonance—but Largey resists nostalgia by making the grief architecture visible, not buried.
The choice to keep the voiceover bright and almost comedic while the image quietly breaks your heart is the entire film, and it's executed with such precision that you don't realize you're watching a grief story until you're already inside it.
Reviews
A wonderful, nostalgic and very thoughtfully written piece of filmmaking... Even though the often humorous narration lends the story a welcome air of cheerfulness, this film is, in fact, nothing short of heartbreaking.