The impact of the passage of time is felt more acutely during this time of year: what’s come from the past, how we can resolve to do things better to get the life we want, the possibilities that lie before us in the unknown. Time travel films this time of year seem a bit more appealing in this respect. Bearing that in mind, here’s Chris Ashton’s The Jump.

I really enjoyed the playful shots of the time machine building  – it reminded me a bit of the construction of Ash’s hand in Army of Darkness, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (struck me as a bit Edgar Wright as well, which, again, isn’t a bad thing). I liked that it worked with the locations and budget it had to inspire my imagination without being hokey. I did find that it took a turn for the serious in a rather quick fashion once our hero decided to visit his mother before her death; that was my one complaint. I’m not going to trouble myself with the accuracy of the pin pointed date and time; I can overlook that because what got me thinking was words of the parting shot  – “will try again.” There’s one of two ways that you can view the implications of this ending:

1. Let sleeping dogs lie. The past is in the past. You can’t change it; hell, doing so might just cause what you’re trying to avoid, or make it worse. Your past makes you who you are, and by disrupting that, you disrupt the events that lead you to build a time machine to go back and change it. Besides, do you so desperately feel that something needs to be fixed that you’re willing to negate the current version of yourself? Are you willing to stop being you? Let’s face it, our tragedies shape us and forge us into something else. Perfect happiness seldom leads to advancement.

2. There’s hope. You can always go back and change it if you’re not happy. There’s beauty in the steadfast refusal to give up on making something better, especially if it’s for someone (or something) for which you really care. I’m willing to bet that everyone reading this has at least one person for whom he or she would readily rip a hole in the fabric of the universe in order to keep that person alive. Or safe. Or happy. Even if it means completely rearranging the future. That’s really a lovely sentiment.

So, the question is, which one are you?