Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Freya Tingley Charles Grounds, Joshua Morton, Elise Jansen
Intro:
... might not be the Housos vs Back to the Future mashup you were hoping it was going to be, but it does offer up an alternative and interesting take on sci fi tropes.
With the BBC this year celebrating 6 decades of Doctor Who, it seems only fair that Australia gets a fair suck of the sauce bottle and drops its own time travelling adventure. Enter Time Addicts from director and writer Sam Odlum.
The story follows two eshays, Denise (Freya Tingley) and Johnny (Charles Grounds), as they doss around the streets of Melbourne. There’s a George Milton/Lennie Small hue to their relationship, or at least Johnny would seem to think so. Intelligent, but uneducated, he waxes lyrical about the world, drugs and the scourge of both: undercover cops. Although Denise regularly rolls her eyes into the back of her head once he starts pontificating, they clearly have a strong bond over previous events before we take up the action in the film.
Seeking a reprieve from the day, i.e., Crack, and noting they’ve run out, the duo strikes a deal with mulleted and vicious drug dealer, Kane (Joshua Morton). He will strike off their current debt, allowing them to buy more drugs, if they do some breaking-and-entering and retrieve a bag of mysterious narcotics from somewhere on the property. It’s not much of a spoiler to say that the hapless friends manage to pull it off, but not without consequence. For his part, Johnny decides to sample the goods and ends up travelling back in time to the ‘90s, while Denise is left with her future self, trying to work out where the sudden screaming is coming from in the house.
Much is made in the marketing about Time Addicts being produced by the same team as The Babadook [let’s just say that’s a very longbow], and rather than simply being a bit of stunt crediting, it actually makes sense to shout about it. It offers a hint about the journey you’re being taken on. Whereas The Babadook is a contemplation of coping with grief and depression, Time Addicts is about regrets, ruminating and risk-taking behaviour. Even though, as everyone tries to escape their plights by taking more and more time and drugs, it does sometimes feel like we’re being beaten around the head with an allegory.
The humour here is filthy and pitch black, but writer/director Sam Odlam strips away enough at times to show a vulnerability to his characters. Particularly for Denise, whose life appears to be intrinsically linked to the house she’s trapped in.
If you think too hard about the film’s logic, you’ll be shouting ‘bootstrap paradox’ at the screen until the cows come home. However, that’s’ not the point. Odlam is more concerned about the characters’ reactions to the inanity they’re exposed to than the logistics of how it all fits together. Denise refers to a ‘fairytale for cunts’ earlier in the film and in a way that’s where Time Addicts lies. Its characters make poor choices, they sneer, they bite, but there’s a chance of redemption. Even if it’s just a glimmer.
Held together by strong performances from its two leads, Time Addicts might not be the Housos vs Back to the Future mashup you were hoping it was going to be, but it does offer up an alternative and interesting take on sci fi tropes.
