One of the best episodes of the new revival of The Twilight Zone is the third episode, which is titled “Replay.” The basic setup of it is that a black mother is taking driving her son out to college. However, during lunch, the mother discovers that an old camcorder she has can reverse time. So, when a racist cop later pulls them over, and an argument leads to the son’s death, the mother uses the camcorder to go back and hopefully stop her son from being killed. Unfortunately, it seems like no matter how many different ways she tries to change things, her son dies at the hands of that same cop no matter what.
It’s an interesting conceit, and it touches on something that is often rarely explored in certain genres. Some of them simply don’t offer the same level of escapism for one group of people that it might for another. The classic joke is that you can’t do a time travel movie with a black character because no matter where you go back to, chances are, they’ll encounter some trouble. I like the idea of filmmakers coming from these backgrounds to explore these ideas further.
That is very much the case with See You Yesterday, a new Netflix release from Spike Lee protégé, Stefon Bristol, who not only makes his directorial debut here, but he also co-wrote it with Fredrica Bailey, adapting his 2017 short film of the same name. This one involves two teen best friends, C.J. (Eden Duncan-Smith) and Sebastian (Dante Crichlow), two very bright students who are working on a time machine that – when working properly – would send them back in time to the previous day.
The machine ends up working, but complications ensure when C.J.’s tough, but protective older brother, Calvin (Astro), is murdered by the police. C.J. decides that the best thing to do is to go back and fix things, but even doing that leads to various other distractions and plans gone awry, and it seems like no matter what she does, Calvin – and perhaps another person she is close to – ends up dead.
The film has to do a very tricky balancing act. Bristol has to create an environment that will suit the interest of a story that is equal parts wacky, teen sci-fi hijinks and an urban, social justice drama. And for the most part, that balance works out. There’s only a few moments where certain characters rely on shtick in moments that should be very inappropriate considering the stakes involved, with one particular character, Eduardo (Johnathan Nieves), a boy with a mad crush on C.J., who I found incredibly hard to warm up to.
Thankfully, C.J. and Sebastian are a very likable duo, though the film is very rightfully carried on Duncan-Smith’s shoulders as she carries all the emotional baggage throughout the film, struggling to keep things together. If I were to read the character on paper, I could easily see myself having a hard time connecting with her because she has a tendency to make rash decisions that end up with terrible consequences that most viewers will likely see coming from a mile away. However, it’s more forgivable because she is still a teenager, and plus, Duncan-Smith is genuinely terrific, and has a great screen presence.
See You Yesterday’s outlook seems a bit bleaker than the Twilight Zone episode I mentioned, but it still ends on a note that is both determined and hopeful. It’s not a perfect film by any stretch, but it’s got a big passion behind every frame, it’s beautifully put together, and it just feels alive, capturing the streets of its New York neighborhood with vibrancy and an incredible eye for detail and authenticity. If anything, it sets up Stefon Bristol as a filmmaker to keep an eye on. There are things I wish it fleshed out more, certain plot points that didn’t completely work for me, and various other tiny things I could gripe about, but I love how ambitious this was for a debut, and I can’t wait to see more of what these filmmakers and these actors got.