{Fantastic Fest 2022} The Visitor From the Future

You know that perfect day you didn’t even know you needed. You get to sleep in. Its warm enough you can wear shorts but cool enough you wear a hoodie. Your work comes easy and feels more like fun then a job. Admittedly those days feel rarer and rarer. The Visitor From the Future is that movie you missed without realizing it. It is sunny and bright but with enough of the cool genre context we have come to know and rely on. Unabashedly my favorite small budget film from Fantastic Fest 2022, The Visitor From the Future is full of the optimism the pandemic bled out of all of us.

Based off of a very popular French web series of the same name The Visitor From the Future has a large following in France and the movie version proves why.  Full of Easter eggs from other beloved sci fi franchises The Visitor From the Future is funny. Not funny for a French film where some of that humor misses its English audience. I mean laugh out loud funny. Full smile, giant guffaw funny. The plot is simple, A visitor played with a brilliant goofiness by Florent Dorin visits modern Paris to tank the election of a bureaucrat whose ascension to office will bring on a nuclear apocalypse. The Time Brigade, a group of draconian time police, are pissed and spend the bulk of the movie trying to bring him to justice. What follows feels like the big science fiction movie from Edgar Wright we were promised with At World’s End (so much so there is a great Easter egg for the movie at the end of the film).

Writer/Director Francois Descraques is a charming as the movie he helped create. Before the movie screened at Fantastic Fest he begged the audience in broken English “please be nice”. His film follows that advice. Despite the post-apocalyptic setting Visitor somehow maintains its visionary optimism. Even the heroes we lose along the way maintain a connection to the film that feels deeper and more positive then the mere sad throwbacks we get in less ambitious movies. They are important even when they are gone. Moreover, the small budget helps reinforce the very human relationships that structure the third act. A dinner scene involving a group of kids at the end of the film will have Hook fans clamoring. Descraques mentioned in the post screening Q and A that this scene filmed during the pandemic was the first time since the beginning of COVID that the children had been around kids their own age and the smiles and energy of the scene was very real. ‘They got to play together’ he said with twinkle in his eye. Movies are pretty incredible and this is just one small reason why.

The plot of the movie is the least innovative element. The plot feels recycled but the cast and crew really know how to milk a budget and the limited use of CGI is mostly successful. The real star of the film comes from the costume design which gives the entire film a post-apocalyptic steam punk quality. Rarely do I as a grown up want to walk around in the clothes of the character I see on screen. I absolutely want to wear the clothing and gear of The Visitor. Despite his often-bumbling responses and absent minded demeanor he is cool. A cool disheveled goof ball but cool nonetheless. Alice (Enya Baroux) owns every set piece and her chemistry with Dorin makes every scene they appear in sweet, funny, and full of whimsy. Her arc feels the most genuine and the entire film is dependent on her evolution from slightly privileged green activist to full on super hero. She is believable. Both as an activist with daddy issues, and as a strong protagonist who must grow into her role as savior of the future. Visitor does not have an American distributor yet, but when they do you need to RUN to your local theatre and check it out.