*Premise spoilers.*
Although this Jodie Whittaker film certainly could have been better, it’s an interesting story helped along by solid acting. Also, it’s always fun to discover that an actor who’s played the Doctor was part of a time-travel story prior to their time on Who.
Mia Selva is shaken when an old woman in her building dies by suicide, jumping out the window clutching a picture of Mia’s abusive ex. Further investigation shows that the dead woman’s flat is filled with Mia’s things. Something is going wrong with time, and in order to fix it, Mia has to travel through her own past to put things right.
There’s a lot that interests me here. I like that this is a very personal time travel story, and that it’s used to explore Mia’s past and relationships more so than any world-ending calamity. I enjoy the concept of the lift/elevator that can move residents through time as well as to different floors, and Max, the landlord, makes for a frustrated but sympathetic guide for Mia.
However, I don’t think the film uses its premise as well as it could. The reason Max sends Mia on this journey is because she takes a letter from the old woman’s flat. He tells her, “You made a mistake, Mia. Time is out of joint. You have to put it back.” But the further into the past Mia goes, the more caught up she gets in her own history and the less attention she has for not interfering. She never fully seems to grasp the severity of her meddling. Additionally, there are scenes where she interacts with people from her past, as well as with her younger self, and because Jodie Whittaker is playing both versions of Mia, it’s so weird that no one comments anything stronger than, “You look familiar.” Really?? You’re seeing a woman with an identical face to your girlfriend, and you’re wondering if you might’ve met her somewhere before? Young Mia has no reaction to meeting her doppelganger? For the sake of the performance, I understand why Whittaker is playing both, but for the sake of the narrative, it might’ve been better to cast a different actress to play the younger Mia. Or they could’ve even used the device where we see a different actress playing the young Mia in a reflection, showing that that’s what the other characters are using, even if Whittaker is playing both throughout those scenes.
What begins as an attempt to repair her inadvertent meddling in time quickly becomes an active quest on Mia’s part to save herself from her past abusive relationship. She travels back through the lift to different points in her history with Ludwig, a toxic jazz musician who’s much older, married, and a narcissistic creep. Mia doesn’t just want to fix what she broke by taking the letter. She wants to convince her younger self to leave Ludwig, or prevent her from getting together with him in the first place. It’s never clear how this would solve any of the issues happening with time, but it is understandable that a survivor of abuse would want to use her opportunity with time travel to prevent her own suffering.
A few familiar faces in the cast. Emilia Fox, who I’ll always remember best as Georgiana Darcy in the Ehle/Firth Pride and Prejudice, plays Mia’s mother in the past. And we have not one, but two actors who went on to guest star in new Who themselves, both in series 7. David Warner (the Russian scientist from “Cold Blood”) plays Max with a nice mix of brusqueness and warmth, and Dougray Scott (the ghosthunter in “Hide”) is suitably creepy as Ludwig. When he screams in Mia’s face, ties her naked to her bed, and then tells her how much he loves her, it’s skin-crawling.
Then, of course, there’s Whittaker as Mia. Despite my issues with her playing both the older and younger versions, she does well with the character. It’s a very grounded, naturalistic performance, which is fitting for a very grounded time-travel story. Whittaker reacts honestly to the various situations Mia is in, from her terror at witnessing her past abuse, to her revulsion at still feeling some sort of pull to Ludwig, to her anger at her father not doing more to stand up for himself at a critical moment in the past.
Accent Watch
RP-ish. Not precisely posh, but definitely not Whittaker’s usual Northern accent.
Recommend?
In General – Maybe. Like I said, it could’ve been better, but there’s enough good stuff here that I’d say it’s worth it.
Jodie Whittaker – I think so. Whittaker doesn’t have a ton of starring roles in her filmography, and this is a pretty good one for her.
Warnings
Violence (including domestic violence,) sexual content, drinking/smoking/drug use, and strong thematic elements (including suicide.)
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