The Present
The Present
The Present, directed by Christian Ditter (How to Be Single), is centered on the children who inherit magic features of a clock left by their grandfather to help reconcile their parent’s divorce. The clock has the ability of moving back time 12 hours, and hence, the children repeat the same day in efforts of persuading their parents to call off their separation. If this family-friendly story with grandiose effects sounds like the kind of movie you would have watched back in the 80s, well, this is something else and it does not feel the need to apologize for that in The Present.
Children have the ability to go back in time due to plot convenience – in effect, this is a time loop movie. And while such comparisons hardly seem fair, when presented with Groundhog Day plot structure, it’s hard not to draw parallels. But even if you have no chances to outdo that masterpiece, this genre is a wonderful opportunity to develop the characters and bend viewer’s perception and expectations as the heroes are put into similar situation again and again and you can see how they have developed and changed or not.
This film is unique in how it starts in the middle of a story. Taylor (Easton Rocket Sweda), the youngest child who has a touch aversion due to some undefined neurodiversity, has already attempted loops of saving his family several times. The entire situation revolves around a family meal in which the children’s parents, Jen (Isla Fisher) and Eric (Greg Kinnear) vow that they will no longer be living together. Therefore, instead of seeing his parent’s divorce, Taylor goes back in time and tries to make the day a perfect one which eventually alters the outcome of the day. But he appears to observe that regardless of how far he attempts, no matter how many chances he has, there will always be something that separates them at the end.
It’s impressive how the director makes these transitions smooth, you don’t even understand when Emma (Shay Rudolph) changes from a moody laying sister to a suspicious older sister, and from there the movie starts displaying a couple of it’s ‘best’ moments. Rudolph is amazing. She really looks the part of the oldest and most sensible child without crossing over into annoying territory. Young Julia Stiles comes to mind. Of course, it’s easy to see why she’s quickly building up a career, and she seems destined for greatness. She does have a high school romance subplot, but it is hardly caused because there’s more to do with them, and why leave her annoying boyfriend off the hook?
As The Present film progresses and the plans become more intricate, the pair out of a left field decide to involve an overlooked and weird mid-child Max (Mason Shea Joyce) into the mix and he only brings in new and creative ways to sabotage their plans.
The tonal quality of the film at times can be described as uneven. There is some really dark humour in which Taylor seeks to kill his mother’s prospective date Richard, a role Ryan Guzman executes brilliantly, only for his sister to thwart his plans. He is one of several characters who stand in the way of a blissful marriage, others include a couple’s therapist obsessed with orchids played by Arturo Castro and a brutish realtor, played by Alphonso McAuley, who looks like he has just stepped out of a fraternity.
There is just a bit too much of adults talking about their relationships along with somewhat relatable therapy sessions for this to be completely suitable for children, and the antics for the children are really not smart enough to sustain the attention of adults, one of the major changes to the day is getting the dad a new hair cut. So, one may say, this is a family movie; something that pleases and annoys all in equal proportions.
Every loop, like every piece of art, must come to a resolution, however, the film gradually loses its perspective almost abandoning its very idea by the end. There is a euphoric highlight, which is over two hours in build up, and the exalted profundity is more common than ever and looks more like it’s stepped out of the 1950s. In general, such a calm ending is expected since the tension created was negligible in the first place. Why would it matter if they all stayed in unison? The chemistry is perfectly alright, but does it really matter? I doubt anyone would be overly distressed by the end.
The Present film’s structure is more of a Rashomon, since the day and events leading to the marriage’s breakdown are seen through the eyes of the different actors, in each of the sequences. In a sense, this is an elegant way to highlight the differences and give everyone to the audience, but by the same virtue, you lose some measure of the pleasures of the time loop over the story-escalation.
A great moment is a montage at the end where the kids get bigger, get strange and get progressively more illegal in their attempts to stop the marriage from dissolving. More of this sort of thing across the board would have probably made the film mean a little bit more than it did. Perhaps even the children in the audience had they tried to be children and pretend that nothing they did really mattered would have made it a bit more amusing.
Is it staged better than any action movie? Well, the answer is pretty much straightforward – No. None of the possibilities the central idea offers are even remotely utilized. As far as time travel is concerned, it consists merely of a few reversed clips and some clock sparkles, but it works.
That is not to say that it feels like a low-budget television The Present film in any way; possibly, it could be regarded as a feature-length episode of an elegant anthology series such as Amazing Stories. The veterans Fisher and Kinnear manage to elevate the material and it is rather difficult not to find it entertaining.
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- Genre: Comedy
- Country: United States
- Director: Christian Ditter
- Cast: Isla Fisher, Greg Kinnear, Easton Rocket Sweda
