[Panic Fest 2020 Review] James vs. His Future Self is a Surprisingly Charming Sci-Fi-Rom-Com

I’m not really a fan of romantic comedies. They’re too formulaic. Yeah, yeah, I know a complaint about horror is that they are sometimes driven by convention and formulas. But romantic comedies just feel so rigid and bound to it that instead of them giving me the heart eye emoji, they give me the eye-rolling ones. But I’m also not really a fan of most science fiction with its focus on equations and logical systematic examinations of the world around us. I guess it’s probably because I was never really good at science and it, like history, bored me to tears. 

Of course there are exceptions to the rule. Some of the best science fiction, for me, frames the discussion not on the difference between parsecs and lightyears (no clue) but instead focuses on what makes us human. But when it gets wrapped around the axle of how the thing works vice the why...well, picture a lot of Zzz emojis. 

This is a very long-winded way to say that I went into James vs. His Future Self expecting to hate it. But somehow the chemical reaction of the two reactive bonds of romantic comedy and science fiction synthesized into a compound that sent a neural impulse through me, causing an automatic and pleasurable reaction in my limbic system.    

Did that make sense? Fuck if I know, I was an English major.

In the words of his sister Meredith (Tommie-Amber Pirie), James Dolensky (Jonas Chernick) has a doctorate in “experimental particle things” but doesn’t understand the basics of making a cup of coffee. He spends so much time in his head that he doesn’t have the patience for the little things like boiling water or understanding social cues. Instead, James is obsessed with figuring out time travel and his garage is filled with equations in an attempt to find the missing piece that will allow him to travel in time, presumably back fifteen years to avert the death of his parents. 

His best (and only) friend is Courtney (Cleopatra Coleman), a fellow doctor who works at the same lab as James, under the tutelage of Dr. Rowley (Frances Conroy). Courtney is about to take a job at CERN in Switzerland to work on the Large Hadron Collider and this is where the crux of the romance part of this rom-com-sci-fi comes in. Courtney might have feelings for James and James definitely has feelings for Courtney...but he’s so preoccupied with science stuff that he doesn’t realize it.

Enter Future James Dolensky (Daniel Stern), who went back in time to warn Present James that at the end of the week, Dr. Rowley will offer a permanent position for a new project and that James must not submit his time travel project. Because he will get it, invent time travel and...well, as Future James tells it, “end up desperately alone. Driven insane. You will end up losing everyone that you care about.”

While the film obviously spends a little bit of time explaining the rules of this particular concept of time travel and involves science, it does so in a light-hearted way. When talking about the discrepancy between Daniel Stern’s James and Jonas Chernick’s James, for instance, it turns out time travel stretches you. So Future James is taller, a little fatter. Oh and he has a bigger dick...which he pulls out to prove they are the same person. 

I guess fingerprints and DNA testing take too long. 

Once the science gets out of the way, James vs. His Future Self is actually a nice romantic comedy about two incredibly intelligent people who aren’t aware that they even each other out. But then add into the mix Future James, a kind of Terminateur de Bergerac, who simultaneously guides Present James on his quest of self actualization and love while telling him, “if you don’t get your shit together by Friday I’m going to fuck up your life.” 

What makes the kind of flimsy story work is the endearing characters and great actors. Cleopatra Coleman stole the show in her brief, one episode run in Now Apocalypse and she lights up the screen here. She is a star just waiting to be discovered. Meanwhile, Daniel Stern brings a world-weary smarm to his version of James. The script is witty (“This place smells like cardamom and sadness”) and the romance is endearing enough that I found myself surprisingly misty-eyed at the ending. 

The biggest problem with James vs. His Future Self? Apparently, there’s no tomatoes in the future. If there’s one chemical reaction I do understand, it’s that you need tomatoes to make ketchup. 

And that just sucks.