PROJECT ALMANAC – The Review

I’m comfortable in the fact that I’m getting older. I have lived a bountiful life thus far filled with indelible memories and amazing people. Never have I felt the need to go back and relive old memories or capture the “glory days.” For starters, I never had many “glory days” in high school. Writing for the school yearbook, participating in the Art Club, and performing in the school’s musicals and plays at an all boy’s Catholic school was hardly considered normal when I was there. Times have changed though and my afternoons sitting in the lunchroom as an awkward teenager have long passed.

PROJECT ALMANAC is a found footage journey through time that is clearly aimed at the teen demographic. I don’t have a problem with that, but I understand my enjoyment level would have risen had I been about 15 years younger. That being said, I still found myself getting swept up in the fun antics once these high schoolers start winning the lottery, buying cars, and going to Lollapalooza. No, I didn’t feel nostalgic for my own geeky years, but I related to the idealistic wants and desires of the characters on-screen. The days when pining for a single kiss from your new crush meant more than the world. The superficial wishes of the characters in PROJECT ALMANAC are about as deep and as meaningful as the story that transpires, but at least they felt genuine in the context of this shaky sci-fi flick.

After much waiting, David Raskin (Jonny Weston) finally receives a letter from MIT saying that he’s been accepted. But there’s one catch. He didn’t receive the scholarship he was hoping for, thus making his struggle to get in begin all over again. How is he supposed to come up with the money with a widowed mother supporting her son and daughter turned filmmaker/cinematographer of our movie? An afternoon scouring through old boxes in the attic leads David to discover that maybe his father was onto something that holds the key to his future – maybe, it might be something that will reunite the two across time.

PROJECT ALMANAC is long and extremely predictable, but I’d be damned if it doesn’t have a ton of heart. The film plays out like a young adult novel complete with page-turner after page-turner. By no means is PROJECT ALMANAC forward thinking sc-fi. Anyone who legitimately thinks a potential MIT student and his friends can build a working time machine from a handful of blue prints is kidding themselves. Except once the film gets going and their experiments from transporting a toy car escalate to going back as a group weeks into time, I found myself along for the ride. Just remember: this is a wholesome teen sci-fi flick. We’re not talking about highbrow cinema like some of the film’s characters name drop throughout (LOOPER and dare I say BILL & TED’S EXCELENT ADVENTURE). There’s a level of ease to how PROJECT ALMANAC naturally unfolds; I only wish the journey didn’t feel quite as tiresome at times.

What helps the film’s length and overt simplicity more tolerable for adult viewers is the quality of the teen actors. The group is made up of several actors that play the “natural” high school student quite well. Their actions and delivery never feel scripted or staged. Who leads the group both thematically in the story and in the acting department is Jonny Weston. His journey from a normal kid struggling to get into MIT into a normal kid struggling with a very real predicament with dire and fatal consequences feels honest and believable. Along the way we see his “will he or won’t he” love affair with Jessie (Sofia Black D’Elia), but it’s his struggle in the last 30 minutes as an obsessed addict that is slightly haunting and somewhat unexpected. In a sweaty and stained t-shirt, David tries to fix the cycle he started and portrays it in a frenzied manner that really shows off the actor’s range.

It’s easy to pick apart the science of PROJECT ALMANAC or point fingers at the silliness of the situation that the film presents. By the time the credits begin to roll, I wasn’t left with a deeper feeling or some larger question. I didn’t feel that the film presented a new entry into the time-travel genre – if that’s what you want to call it. Yes, it may be forgettable weeks after seeing it or even hours after. However, in the moments when I saw this ragtag group of kids on the brink of a new scientific discovery or in the middle of pure euphoria witnessing a live musical performance, I couldn’t help but join them and get lost in the magic of the moment.

Overall rating: 3 out of 5

PROJECT ALMANAC is now playing in theaters everywhere.