The Present

Writer: Jay Martel

Director: Christian Ditter

As Stephen Hawkings pointed out, we have not been invaded by hordes of tourists from the future. Time travel is officially impossible. Still, the idea of being able to go back and change things is irresistible to most of us. Back to the Future and Groundhog Day are classics. Jay Martel’s screenplay (based on his novel) adds a couple of extra tried and tested tropes: children trying to keep their parents together (as in The Parent Trap) and a savant younger brother (as in A Wrinkle in Time). It’s not surprising if the audience feels it has been here before.

At a specially arranged family dinner, Jen (Isla Fisher) and Eric (Greg Kinnear) announce their plan to separate. Their three children are appalled. Taylor, a neuro-divergent ten-year-old with the face of a Botticelli angel, rushes from the table to his basement den of devices. Among these is a grandfather clock, fortuitously delivered that morning, formerly the possession of Eric’s presumably deceased father. It’s broken and comes with a clunky motto that doesn’t promise much and doesn’t really rhyme. Taylor has not only fixed the clock but discovered he can turn it back so that the day can be repeated – though not indefinitely – tension rises as the clock gets tired. The siblings, Emma and Max, get involved and together they refine the events of the day, with increasingly creative strategies. The film celebrates wholesome values: teamwork, family life and the importance of eating together.

For fantasy to satisfy it has to be believable. The Present asks us to accept a few too many implausibilities. In what reality is it OK to leave any child alone at home, let alone an autistic one? How do children come by large amounts of cash without exciting suspicion? How long does it really take to trash an apartment? You can get away with discrepancies if it’s specifically a children’s film – but this, while described as a ‘family comedy’, has serious adult themes, and it’s not clear who the target audience is. After all, it is about the collapse of a marriage. In the relationship counsellor’s office Eric speaks bleakly of what’s gone wrong. All he senses is “Disinterest. Distrust. Dislike.” Both Kinnear and Fisher show real pain. Having a child with special needs has taken its toll, and Eric has felt excluded. Jen claims he wasn’t ‘present’.

The other children have been affected. Max complains that because Taylor ‘has “issues” diagnosed by “professionals”’ he gets to sit at home all day and play video games. When Eric tells Emma they’ve never had to worry about her, she flashes back, “You’ve never been able to worry about me.” It’s not without references to sex, although these might drift past the consciousness of small children. Or thoroughly confuse them. It seems that when Mummy and Daddy love each other very much but are having problems, they wear a lot of underwear in bed. Young boys might also take note that presenting a girl with a large box of Trojans will not go over well. They’ll perhaps sensibly assume that a box of sweets with names they’ve heard of would be a better choice.

In a more realistic version, Emma (sympathetically played by Shay Rudolph) would be suffering from anxiety about her parents at home and pressure from her worthless boyfriend at school. In the Hollywood version the sun always shines and everything, including an allergic reaction to nuts, is comedy material. The relationship counsellor with problems of his own is a cartoon character. Rather than being troubled, Taylor is sweet and quirky. He doesn’t speak himself but communicates through digitally created voices, charmingly depending on his audience –‘British Pop Star’ for Emma and Barack Obama for Jen. He never normally leaves the house. Being grounded is exactly what he likes.

The Present is entertaining. There are some good jokes. However, it skims so lightly over serious issues that it fails to make us really care. It lacks credibility.

The Present will be in UK cinemas from 24th May.