Robert Zemeckis was once asked about his films’ shared common interest with “time”: his Back to the Future trilogy, Forrest Gump’s journey through the 20th century, Contact’s pre-Interstellar explorations of the time-space continuum and, even, A Christmas Carol’s ghosts of past, present and future. He simply stated that “film is the artistic medium that inherently explores time, narrative is the illusion of time, and the motion picture is the clearest way to manipulate it.” This may seem obvious, but it is Zemeckis’ clear understanding of the medium that explains the current wave of time travel science-fiction in this decade. Christopher Nolan’s Inception and Interstellar, Rian Johnson’s Looper, Duncan Jones’ Source Code, Andrew Niccol’s In Time, Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow– the list goes on. In an Obama-era so concerned with changing humanity’s course for both better and worse, the idea of changing time has never been more relevant.

Predestination, the new picture from Australia’s directing duo Peter and Michael Spierig (Daybreakers) is a pleasant addition to the trend- a small, but super piece of genre filmmaking. It is a very thoughtful, progressive piece in both narrative  and technical craft- hardly the C-list action feature that is promised from the marketing. But it is all the more better for that. It is the rare science fiction film that- unlike a few of the aforementioned films- diverts from big set pieces, destination locations, studio think-tank climaxes and finds that careful balance between spectacle and sentiment.

Ethan Hawke- fresh in the awards season boat with another ‘time travel’ piece in Boyhood – plays his part with his usual charisma. He is the rare ‘everyman’ actor who finds value in such quirky, concept-driven independent features…

Based on the 1950s short story ‘All You Zombies’ by the ‘dean of science fiction’ Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers), the film’s first half is essentially a conversation between a Temporal Agent (Ethan Hawke)- or time traveller- and a mysterious writer who writes as “The Unmarried Mother” (Sarah Snook). It has noir-like tendencies both aesthetically in its very deliberate mood and lighting, but also narratively as the story unfolds. As ‘The Unmarried Mother” tells a bizarre but fascinating life story, the Temporal Agent allows John to go back in time and adjust what went awry. It turns into the “thinking man’s” science-fiction- a puzzle of a narrative that is as easy to follow as it is baffling. To summarize anymore would be unfair to the film.

Like any science-fiction film, there are many logical holes. The physical process of time travel, for instance, is rather clumsy to really believe and the physics and consequences of the time travel ‘business’ are skated over. However, these concerns are inherent in any ‘science-fiction’ films- or at least when complex science is simplified for narrative constraints. Its relatively small-scale production also shows at times in weak shot coverage and all-too-simple set design. Predestination isn’t about ‘science’ and ‘time’ though – it’s a much deeper and better film than that. It refrains from answering all questions because it knows that it cannot answer them. The Spierig’s don’t attempt to answer bigger questions, they just look to explore the human inkling to discover time and narrative.

Ethan Hawke- fresh in the awards season boat with another ‘time travel’ piece in Boyhood – plays his part with his usual charisma. He is the rare ‘everyman’ actor who finds value in such quirky, concept-driven independent features (i.e. The Purge) and makes the realities they explore much more tangible. However, he often steps into a supporting role to his co-star Sarah Snook- who shows off such an uncanny range in an oddly demanding role. It is a glimmer of humanity in what could have been a cardboard genre exploration- yet the actors are the pulse of the entire film, making a thematically groundbreaking narrative for the genre.

In the greater cinematic ‘time-space continuum’, Predestination is bound to be lost among louder, flashier contemporaries. It is really quite strange to review films like this one because their success depends on the puzzle, not the full solution. There is more to the film than ‘time travel’, complex narrative, charming acting and retro-cool production design. It is not perfect and perhaps its cult status is imminent, but Predestination is a film that proves that film may be the best science in exploring time.