See You Yesterday follows two high school students named CJ and Sebastian, played by newcomers Eden Duncan-Smith and Dante Crichlow, respectively, who have been working on perfecting time travel, and finally put their experiments to the test when they attempt to stop the murder of her brother, played by the hip-hop artist Astro. The film is an exploration of the idea that surely many people have pondered if time travel actually was real. It’s a personal story that also adds a level of social commentary to it. And the movie does a solid job at getting both its major ideas across, even if it tends to be disjointed in doing so.
The film only clocks in at just under an hour and a half, though it’s questionable if it even needed to be that long. There are only so many major dramatic beats that occur here, and the main plot doesn’t truly kick off until about a half hour in. The film quickly establishes how CJ and Sebastian are working on time travel within the first five minutes, and then spends another twenty just setting up CJ’s backstory, and introducing many of the people in her life.
While character development is crucial and it’s great that the movie takes the time to flesh her character out, it sometimes felt like it went on way longer than it needed to. There will be a lot of dialogue exchanges establishing relationships between characters who don’t really serve much importance after the first time they’re seen on screen. This also includes a mainly pointless cameo by Michael J. Fox as her teacher, who’s there simply to recite a Back to the Future line.
And once the main story kicks off, it’ll feel like certain scenes in between a major plot point tend to linger too long, and drill a certain emotion in the audience’s brain. After something major occurs in this movie, it’ll then slow down and take its time to reflect on what just happens. And these scenes are fine for how well-acted they are, but not only do they go on for a tad too long, they’re also a completely different change of pace from the scene that just occurred before it. The energy is totally different, and it feels like a totally different movie. While they work individually, when they’re put together, it doesn’t feel like a cohesive narrative.
Because the movie also takes its time in between certain narrative beats, it causes it to take too long to tie certain characters and ideas back together. There are minor characters who appear towards the beginning of the movie, and aren’t seen again until the third act, where they play a part for one scene before being discarded once again.
And some of the social commentary that this movie makes doesn’t come off as feeling necessary at first. There’s an extended scene involving the police in the first act that doesn’t feel like it had any purpose of being there, especially for how long the movie focuses on this scene. And it’s not until much later that it makes sense why it was included. While most of the concepts this movie introduces winds up being important, it also contains so many different energies from scene to scene that it never flows smooth from scene to scene.
The movie is at its best though during any of the time travel scenes. Due to the limitations of CJ and Sebastian’s devices, they are only allowed ten minutes each time they travel back in time. So everything’s a race against the clock. And each of these scenes are pretty thrilling, with a lot of big moments occurring in these short periods of time. There are some interesting plot twists that occur, some solid moments of brief action, and plenty of highly emotional moments. When these scenes kick in, they are a lot of fun to watch, for just how unpredictable they are.
And part of what makes so many of these scenes so engaging to watch is Eden Duncan-Smith’s performance. She has a lot of passion in her delivery, and clearly gives it her all in each scene, and gives CJ a vibrant personality that’s easy to follow. She’s at the emotional core of this movie, with much of how the audience feels being driven by her actions and personality. She offers some of the more humorous moments early on in the movie, and she never overdoes it when it comes to some of the more somber material. A lot of this movie’s strengths lie with her.
See You Yesterday introduces a lot of interesting ideas and concepts. Unfortunately, with each of those ideas comes a radically different energy that continuously switches up the pacing from scene to scene. It goes from making a statement, to being a tragic character study, to being a race-against-the-clock time travel movie. And all of these moments are intriguing to watch, even if they don’t always flow together cohesively. Despite its flaws, the movie benefits from a great lead performance by Eden Duncan-Smith, as well as plenty of thrilling and emotional moments that make this an overall solid watch, even if it doesn’t always come together neatly.
Recommendation: Proceed With Caution
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