Another Time (2018)

Eric Laziter (Justin Hartley) is a rising finance star who is well off, but does not really like his job. He seems very interested in science and astronomy, and as a child dreamed of becoming an astronaut.

As an adult, he complains about his job a lot to his best friend Kal (James Kyson), but he shows no motivation to do anything else with his life, even though his high intelligence could allow him to do more. Eric's firm buys out a smaller company and in the transition he meets a woman named Julia (Chrishell Stause). They are forced to work together during the handover of accounts, and this causes a lot of friction at first. Over the next few days of working closely together, they have some deep conversations about life direction and goals and Eric starts to fall in love with her. However it turns out that Julia is engaged to a man named Ben (Mark Valley). She acknowledges there is a potential romantic connection with Eric, but she disagrees with Eric that the universe wants them to be together. She says she would have met Eric before she met Ben if the universe really wanted them to fall in love, and she is committed to Ben and loves him very much. They part and Eric is a bit depressed and doesn't want to let go of his feelings for Julia. He is watching a science program on television when Dr. Joseph Goyer (Alan Pietruszewski) is interviewed and claims that he believes time travel will be discovered in this lifetime. Coupled with Julia's comment about the missed timing of their connection, this makes Eric obsessed with traveling in time. Eric travels to the local university that Dr. Goyer was affiliated with. After an exchange with a difficult security guard (Ethan Cohn) who doesn't want to help at all, a different professor (Professor Hawkins, played by Karl T. Wright) offers to help. Eric is told that Goyer was fired many years ago after an experiment went wrong and the lab exploded. Eric is also told that the university doesn't know where Goyer is now, but he is told about Goyer's ex-wife Lynn (Julia Parker). A quick visit to her and Eric learns that Goyer's family had property in Arizona, and Kal (James Kyson) then helps with some internet sleuthing to find the address for this property. Eric travels to this home and finds Goyer there. Turns out that Dr. Goyer has been enjoying the seclusion and quiet ever since being fired, and although he still believes time travel is possible, he initially shows little interest in pursuing it more. Eric offers to provide money and assistance, and his enthusiasm convinces Goyer to restart his research. The two men bond over their affection for science fiction while they work together. Dr. Goyer also discusses the impact of the lab explosion on his life and career. He also tells Eric a story about a kaleidoscope toy he really wanted when he was younger, but couldn't afford. Later, as an adult, he was able to find that toy and buy it. He was so distracted looking through the kaleidoscope that he bumped into a woman, and dropped the toy, breaking it only a few minutes after finally owning it after all those years. Although Eric suggests that the kaleidoscope was cursed, Goyer disagrees, because, he says, he fell in love with the woman he bumped into and married her. The two men are also shown discussing a little bit about Goyer's time travel theories and equations, without too much detail, although Goyer does say that when you go back in time you aren't changing your own present, you are actually starting a brand new time-line in which you can do things differently, like a parallel universe or parallel time-line. As the work progresses, Goyer doesn't want to finish until Eric reveals why he is helping out, which is something Eric has been evading. Eric finally tells him the truth, that he wants to go back in time to meet Julia before she meets Ben, so she can fall in love with him instead of Ben. When Goyer realizes that Eric wants to do the experiment on himself, he gets very agitated, calling it too dangerous to go straight to experimenting on a human, that anything could go wrong. So he refuses to try to resolve the final stumbling blocks and says the work they have done will advance knowledge enough, he is satisfied. Eric angrily storms off, and ends up at a local dive bar that is completely empty except for him and a bartender named Ally (Arielle Kebbel). He unloads his troubles on her, and she is sympathetic. She describes herself as someone who used to think of herself as wild and crazy but that she ended up playing it too safe and never had any adventures. Now she has too many responsibilities to change that, and she seems bitter. Eric asks her what she would do if she could go back in time and do things differently as a younger person, and she says she would do something crazy like go on an adventure to Alaska. The film cuts to Dr. Goyer at home alone, thinking, and then to Eric in a hotel room working on equations. He apparently has a breakthrough, brings his notes to Dr. Goyer, and they restart their work together. They rather quickly solve all the remaining difficulties and are ready to do the experiment, which Goyer no longer seems to have any objections to. Eric wants to go back to the same day that Julia first met Ben, which he knows because it was the opening day of the first Twilight film, which Julia told him was the line Ben used to pick her up that first time. It is "coincidentally" the same day as the explosion at Goyer's lab, so Goyer asks Eric to take a note he has written to his past self, so that version of the time-line can have a Goyer that avoids the failure and being fired. They have created a plan where Eric will travel back in time, take Goyer's truck which was left here in the past while Goyer worked in LA, and then drive to LA to give younger Goyer the letter, with enough time to then meet Julia at the mall. The experiment works, but when Eric tries to start the truck, it won't work. So Eric has to walk into the small town, where he goes to a convenience store and meets younger Ally, who was working as a store clerk in the past. She lends him her phone and he calls younger Kal. He doesn't believe Eric is in Arizona at first, but then comes to get him. It is a five and a half hour drive, so while waiting for younger Kal, Eric talks with younger Ally, and tries to encourage her to take more risks. Younger Kal picks up Eric, and on the long drive back Eric reveals all about the time travel and the purpose for it. They realize that the delay caused by the broken truck means that Eric cannot do both things he was planning, he either has to warn Goyer about the explosion OR he can go meet Julia before Ben picks her up. He tries calling the university to get a message to Goyer, but the secretary is rude to him and won't let him through. So Eric decides to focus on Julia. Eric goes to the mall and finds younger Julia, and tries to pick her up in the exact same manner that Ben did, but it doesn't work for him. He starts to try again, and this time his more natural self seems to be connecting with her, when he spots two young boys fighting over a kaleidoscope toy. When it breaks, he is reminded of the story Goyer told him and is spurred to help younger Goyer rather than continue to try with Julia. As Kal drives him to the university, we see Ben meet with Julia, just as he did in the original time-line. Eric has trouble getting past the younger version of the same security guard who gave him an attitude when he first tried to get information on Dr. Goyer, but he gets past him, and is able to hand younger Dr. Goyer the note from his older self, in time to prevent the lab explosion. The film wraps up with some indication that Goyer and his wife stay together in this new time-line, and that Eric has spent some time living with them while also helping Goyer with his research. The final scenes show him saying goodbye to the Goyers and traveling back to Arizona to meet with Ally, and the film closes with her agreeing to go on an adventure to Alaska with him.