See You Yesterday (2019)

May 26, 2019 4:37 PM

As two teen prodigies try to master the art of time travel, a tragic police shooting sends them on a series of dangerous trips to the past. (Netflix Original)

*Variety - In Stefon Bristol’s lively social sci-fi adventure, two teens travel back in time to try to undo the wrongful shooting of a teen killed by police.

*IndieWire - Spike Lee Trashed This Filmmaker’s NYU Short, Then Produced His First Netflix Feature: Stefon Bristol talks about the hard lessons he learned from Professor Lee on his path to making Netflix sci-fi film "See You Yesterday."

*The Wrap - ‘See You Yesterday’ Film Review: Sprightly Teen Time-Travel Comedy Reveals Dark Truths

*AV Club - See You Yesterday cleverly blends sci-fi, youthful charm, and the harsh reality of police brutality

posted by oh yeah! (9 comments total)

I hadn't watched the trailer or read any of the articles before I watched this movie just now, I'd added it to my Netflix list based on the image & blurb, and decided to give it a try today.

I thought this was pretty great. Starting your time travel movie with a Michael J. Fox cameo? Nice. And the Ghostbusters proton-pack look of the time machine backpacks was endearing. The abruptness/ambiguity of the ending caught me by surprise, but, on reflection I can't imagine any other ending that would work.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:02 PM on May 26, 2019

This was pretty good, although frustrating in parts. The ending was fine (even if it reads to me as if CJ's character was too stubborn to learn that messing with time travel just makes things worse) but did I miss something or did they explain why they had to jump to within moments of the police encounter? Couldn't they just have been, like, hours early and warned everyone? I realize this is the sort of thing time travel movies can rarely if ever handle perfectly, but this seemed quite glaring.
posted by axiom at 9:30 PM on May 26, 2019

I don't think they established the exact limit of how far back they could jump (before or after they got the power boost from Eduardo), just that was a short enough window that if they didn't fix things within a week post-funeral they'd be too far ahead to get back to the day of the murder. So, maybe they should have gone back later & later each time - but then you might lose the Groundhog Day aspect.
posted by oh yeah! at 6:37 AM on May 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

The "wormhole" to allow their return to their own time would only stay open for ten minutes. They could have jumped earlier, but then they would have had to leave before the shooting did or didn't happen.
posted by Tabitha Someday at 9:24 AM on May 27, 2019 [2 favorites]

Metafilter FPP - “There is no where or when in which it is safe to be black.”
posted by oh yeah! at 11:55 AM on May 31, 2019

They always used up a lot of their time window on running to the scene from the alley where they did the jump. But unless I missed it, there was no reason given for why they had to do the jump in that alley. They could have jumped closer to the scene. It would've been easy to write in such a reason – e.g., some power source in the nearby garage laboratory.
posted by Beardman at 12:17 PM on June 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

I did wonder about the alley. But apart from that, I loved this so much. CJ is so relatable, her family and friends are adorable. The Black Lives Matter angle adds weight to the plot and the acting is so well done. And the Michael J Fox cameo is a perfect little cherry on top.

I'm the target market for this, I guess? But anyone who enjoys low-budget sci-fi and/or Spike Lee style films should give this a go.
posted by harriet vane at 1:11 AM on July 28, 2019

Other than the language, this is a solid PG-13 option. Our kiddo has a good handle on swear words and being appropriate, so this was cool for him.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:17 PM on November 1, 2019

My kid, btw, is a genius, pointing out that CJ and Nash don't need the circuit boards to increase the amount of time they can jump. They need only jump back to before they jumped the first time, and leave themselves a note to try the new plan.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:38 PM on November 1, 2019