Time Addicts

Director: Sam Odlum
Starring: Freya Tingley, Charles Grounds, Joshua Morton, Elise Jansen
Distributor: Umbrella Films
Runtime: 92 mins. Reviewed in Dec 2023
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Strong coarse language and drug use

Denise and Johnny, two drug-dependent best friends, heist a bag of time-travelling crystal in order to pay off their debt to a volatile dealer.

Time Addicts is the first feature film, based on one of his short films, by writer-directors, NZ-born, Melbourne filmmaker, Odlum. In terms of science fiction, a clear influence is Philip K Dick, The Scanner Darkly. In terms of style, Odlum references Korean films.

This is a small budget venture, filmed on the streets of the Melbourne suburb St Albans, but mainly inside a deserted and dilapidated house, with a dark and sinister atmosphere.

The two central characters are in debt addicts, always looking for a fix, being refused by dealers. And they frequently bicker. At one stage, one character inevitably asks the M-rated question, here in PG terms, ‘what is going on?’.

Most of the film takes place in the house. The two discover some drugs, experimenting – with one of them disappearing. And this begins the time travel. He finds himself in 1995, the house in much better condition, encountering a woman there who invites him to a sexual liaison. On the other hand, the young woman is hesitant, but on taking some drugs, hallucinates and sees her other self.

Ultimately, they are both back in 1995, making some discoveries about the pregnant woman, and the young woman’s realisation that she herself is in the womb, but her companion is her father. Various kinds of questioning and identity crises.

There is further time travel and confusion when the dealer arrives, looking like the 2020s, active in 1995, yet his having been seen as an old man wounded in the dilapidated house. Threats, confrontations. There is a tantalising development in the time travel at the end, one character going way back to the past and writing a letter for the future, and the young woman and the dealer and the relationship.

Very much a 21st century drama, thriller, for a younger audience rather than an older audience.