One Star Classics : Things Will Be Different

Things Will Be Different

Oct 05, 2024 / Mind Benders

So, here’s one for those of us who like a movie that messes with our minds.

Things Will Be Different follows recently reconnected siblings Sidney and Joseph, who, after performing a heist (as one does), take shelter in an abandoned house that exists outside of time and space. How did they find such a place? Well, it’s not entirely unlikely it found them.

After two weeks pass, the pair find their teleportation closet(!) blocked, and they receive a message: Somebody will sooner or later show up in their dimension, and Sidney and Joseph will need to kill them before they can return home.

Things Will Be Different is Michael Felker’s first film as a director, after previously having worked as an editor on multiple Justin Benson/Aaron Moorhead projects. If you are familiar with those guys’ movies, you will have a good idea of what to expect here, and Things Will Be Different shares similar DNA with films like The Endless.

Convoluted as it is at its root, Felker does a good job of not trying to overexplain things. We know the siblings are stuck in some sort of pocket dimension, and a handful of rules are disclosed… but that’s it. As weeks turn to months, Sidney starts piecing together where the siblings actually are, and while this doesn’t give a definite answer, it’s just enough to have something to hold onto.

Now, Things Will Be Different would have fallen apart if the two characters weren’t portrayed at least semi-grounded, and both Riley Dandy and Adam David Thompson are well up to the task. While they easily could have played them screaming Why us?! to the sky, they instead scale it back to something relatable. Nervous, on edge, and at times angry—yet mostly at relative peace with knowing what they need to do.

That’s really all there is to the movie, superficially speaking. The two of them stuck together in and around a house they can’t leave (one of the few rules), waiting, wondering… It’s tense, and it’s easy to sympathize with the characters. Why are they picked as the assassins? And who are they going to kill? The questions nag at us, too.

I’m not sure any of these types of movies can end on a 100% satisfactory note, but Things Will Be Different left me guessing until the end. And thankfully, it didn’t try to answer most of the larger questions. I do believe the answers are in there, but they are something we need to find ourselves. Things Will Be Different is, luckily, deserving of repeated viewings. Even if not everything becomes clear, I truly do believe things will be different on the second watch. That’s a testament to how well-made this movie is.

That Soundtrack

There are some banging originals in Things Will Be Different—to wit:

By Remi, Oct 05, 2024

Letterboxd summary: In order to escape the police after a robbery, two estranged siblings lay low in a metaphysical farmhouse that hides them away in a different time. There they reckon with a mysterious force that pushes their familial bonds to unnatural breaking points.