Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

I'll Follow You Down Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 5, 2014

Ever since the advances in special effects that computer generated imagery started providing to cinema, notably beginning in the 1990s once the technology was developed enough to really offer photorealistic elements, the sibling genres of science fiction and fantasy have become almost synonymous with huge effects laden features where the humans almost seem like afterthoughts a lot of the time. And so that begs a question: is it even possible to produce a film in either one of these genres without huge, admittedly viscerally impressive, special effects? While one can point to any number of micro-budgeted sci-fi films that have appeared through the years which lacked any kind of really overwhelming special effects “magic”, many (if not most) of these efforts could probably be charitably described as “schlock”. There’s perhaps an even more salient example of this genre being nicely exploited, this time with actual quality, but again without any huge visual spectacle: The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling’s iconic anthology series often poked and prodded the science fiction and fantasy idioms without so much as a make up effect, let alone anything “high tech” (at least for the late fifties and early sixties) like traveling mattes and the like. And yet The Twilight Zone remains a touchstone for science fiction and fantasy writers, a series which regularly provided thought provoking, compelling entertainment without a lot of bells and whistles. While few would probably ever accuse I’ll Follow You Down of being in the same quality echelon as the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, there’s a somewhat similar ethos at work in this small scale, intimate study of a boy who finds himself caught in a kind of time travel conundrum. Even that aspect is dealt with fairly discursively, at least in the early going. We’re privy to some seemingly normal family scenes involving Gabe (Rufus Sewell), his wife Marika (Gillian Anderson) and their young son Erol (played by John Paul Ruttan during this prologue of sorts). Gabe is leaving on some kind of business trip and Marika and Erol accompany him to the airport to send him off. That turns out to be last time Gabe is seen. He simply seems to disappear into thin air, not showing up at the airport for his supposed return flight. When Marika and her father Sal (Victor Garber) start investigating, they find Gabe’s luggage still in his hotel room. That intriguing premise provides the foundation for the film’s roiling emotional content which unfolds several years after the initial disappearance, once a now grown Erol (Haley Joel Osment) attempts to help both himself and his mother regain their emotional balance after such a devastatingly mysterious loss.

Erol, now a twenty-something with a girlfriend named Grace (Susanna Fournier), is attempting to forge something akin to a normal life, but Marika’s emotional devastation is so debilitating that she’s on a prescription cocktail, albeit one that doesn’t seem to be working all that well. Erol tries to cope with this situation, becoming something like a parent to his own mother, but soon he’s thrown for a loop when his Grandpa Sal starts sharing “secret” information about what might have happened to Gabe more than a decade ago.

It’s at this point that I’ll Follow You Down threatens to sink under the weight of its own dramatic artifice. Sal attempts to explain a rather convoluted theory involving wormholes and time travel, along with a perhaps disastrous end for Gabe, which would explain the current state of affairs. Sal wants to try to duplicate Gabe’s supposed time travel experiments, hopefully in order to “set things right”. That of course brings up a whole host of time travel paradoxes, concepts which I’ll Follow You Down tends to beat to death with incredibly talky scenes where all sorts of philosophical ruminations are traded between the grandfather and grandson. Part of what makes this section of the film feel less than authentic is that screenwriter and director Richie Mehta doesn't even trust the concept itself to provide enough dramatic heft, and so there's the added (and needless) element of Erol being a genius physicist himself, only one who's simply too busy being a genius to ever attend the physics class taught by Sal. It's a silly soap operatic addition, and unfortunately it's not the only one.

Marika’s emotional instability provides Gillian Anderson with plenty of opportunities to stare catatonically into space, only to erupt into bouts of hysteria. Meanwhile, Haley Joel Osment gets to play “grown up”, in this case with the added gravitas of being the grown up seemingly in charge of helping his disabled mother get through her psychological gauntlet. Needless to say, things don’t go especially well with either of these characters, with Erol deciding that all of their problems stem from his father’s disappearance and their shared inability to cope with the aftermath.

Perhaps surprisingly, despite an almost complete lack of special effects wizardry, the final third of I’ll Follow You Down manages to work up some surprisingly compelling emotional content. Without spoiling too many of this film’s admittedly small scale “twists”, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Erol does in fact manage to travel back in time to 1946, where he and Sal have figured out Gabe went in order to hobnob with none other than Albert Einstein. However, Mehta does something quite intelligent here, giving us the sole timeline of Erol and Gabe together in the post-World War II era. That offers the two characters a really interesting, if again rather talky, chance to explore various timelines and outcomes. A shocking denouement might initially hint at unavoidable disaster, but as with all good time travel paradoxes, at least one alternate universe offers something akin to a happy ending.

I'll Follow You Down Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I'll Follow You Down is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. This appears to be a digitally shot feature, and the image here is nicely crisp and stable, with excellent clarity, though perhaps due to intentional choices meant to mimic the dour emotional state of the characters, nothing ever really pops very well. Mehta (or his DP Tico Poulakakis) has the odd habit of shooting directly into floodlit rear windows, often leading to near blooming of whites (as can be seen in several screenshots accompanying this review). That said, contrast here is generally strong, seguing easily from the brightly lit outdoor scenes to some rather dark, musty interior locations. The palette here is rather subdued, often exploiting browns and other earth tones. There are a few sequences that have been color graded (the 1940s era stuff is kind of sepia toned, and the opening sequences are somewhat blue), but fine detail remains very good to excellent throughout this presentation.

I'll Follow You Down Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Talk, talk, talk. That's about all there is for I'll Follow You Down's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track to provide, other than some nicely evocative string and piano cues courtesy of composer Andrew Lockington. Even the actual time traveling moment (and it is indeed a moment) doesn't offer much of anything in the way of immersive sound effects. While therefore rather unambitious, the mix here is certainly proficient and clear, with dialogue always coming through clearly and cleanly. Fidelity is excellent, though there's not much in the way of dynamic range.

I'll Follow You Down Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes (1080p; 12:47) is actually rather interesting for one of these EPKs, and includes some nice coverage of the score begin recorded.


• Deleted Scenes:

  Marika's Painting Scene (1080p; 1:35)

  Mrs. Moore (1080p; 00:53)

  Grace Dinner (1080p; 1:43)

• Trailer (1080p; 2:07)

I'll Follow You Down Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'll Follow You Down deserves to be commended for trying something a bit different with the time travel concept. Here, it's the characters left behind and their emotional aftershocks that provide most of the drama, rather than high-falutin' paradoxical content or VFX overkill. While this probably all sounds good on paper, it suffers a bit in execution here, feeling overly drawn out and awfully talky at times. Still, Anderson and Osment do great work, and if the film is largely an exercise in lethargic, depressive nostalgia for a "happily ever before", it's at least a really interesting twist on a sci-fi staple that should intrigue if not speak incredibly strongly to the heart. For those willing to try something a bit unusual, I'll Follow You Down comes Recommended.