directed by:
James Dubbeldam written by: James Dubbeldam genre: Drama, Romance |
In my humble opinion, James Dubbeldam is one of the most competent filmmakers working. I always enjoy the opportunity to spend a couple of minutes in this guy's world & checking out whatever it is that he's come up with, which, incidentally, could be anything. This guy has a limitless imagination and is always coming up with something new. He co-wrote this particular film with Mitchell Silva. No surprise – *spoiler alert – it's another well-written concept that is very much a snapshot of life, zoomed right in. Be warned, there are some spoilers here.
At the heart of this story are May (Lynn Allinger) and Don (Jeffrey Hurst), who were in love years and years ago as teenagers. Flash forward about a half-century or so, and they meet each other again at a completely different stage in their life, with each person in many different circumstances than who they used to be long ago. Don has a tendency to bend the truth like he's put an Instagram filter on his own life, and May is actually in the process of dying. Is this the ideal situation to make another attempt at a love that was never fully realized? I suppose you get the answer right in the title – it's "Never Too Late" for any of us. From what I've learned after watching many Dubbeldam films, he rarely overlooks anything or leaves out details that would be crucial to a story. In fact, more often than not, when something seems out of place or like it is missing something, I tend to assume it's intentional because the guy's attention to detail is consistently accounted for. As we progress through this short film, I found myself thinking that there were pieces of this puzzle that were missing in action and that familiar feeling of the cleverness of misdirection – that when something's not included, that can often be a cue for us to think about what's really trying to be said. For example, one of the key elements of this story would be the inclusion of LOVE, right? Call me crazy, but I found it to be largely absent in the majority of this film. As Don and May reconnect and try to patch up the past with who they are in the present, I couldn't help but feel like they were drawing on feelings from the past, with very little example of what would bond them together in the present. So that led me to start thinking about why Dubbeldam would choose to present this story in this specific way, and then I started to think about "Never Too Late" being more of a comment on how the tiniest acts of kindness can make such a massive difference to our lives. I started to think about how little experience with love many people go through in life, and how some attention feels so much better than no attention at all. Because let's be real here – there are no scenes in "Never Too Late" where you'll see Don setting the world on fire with his heroic actions or being anything more than…well…ordinary – but couldn't ordinary be enough? To the right person, what we might see as ordinary could be completely extraordinary – that's kind of how love works. Cupid's known to shoot his arrows into the strangest of places, and if you've ever seen that couple, you can't make sense of it; it's because love doesn't always make sense to the people outside looking in. What appears to be just a regular, run-of-the-mill, ordinary guy in Don is a beacon of hope, comfort, and love for May – and who would we be to judge her on her life choices? That brings in another element of thought though…when our time is running out, and we're aware of that, would we make different choices based on that - than we might have otherwise? May seems like she's great - a little confused at times perhaps, but a very nice person overall. Should she be potentially settling for some kind of hope that her nostalgia for a past relationship from years ago is going to give her what she's looking for in her life today – or is she scrambling to fill a hole in her love life as quickly as she can before her time runs out forever? It's honestly hard to say. Ultimately, I think our thoughts, feelings, and emotions tell us that she's being genuine in pursuing Don – but I think what Dubbeldam might be attempting to get us to consider is whether or not our instincts guide our final actions more than our consciousness does.
Maybe, just maybe, I'm reading too much into this story because that's what this dude's films tend to do to my brain. Maybe it's a simple tale of long-lost love and the beauty of reconnection & reconciliation. I couldn't tell ya one way or the other for certain cause I live down this rabbit hole, and I've come to like it here. I found that "Never Too Late" raised all kinds of interesting questions. Why has May kept such close tabs on Don's life yet never acted on them until now? Why are we so afraid to act on the things we want in the one life that we get? Does nostalgia end up distorting our memories more than preserving them? Why in the heck do I feel like I could have been Don in my own life or that this whole scenario Dubbeldam has created could still come for me one day? Both Allinger and Hurst did great with their roles. A few other folks in this film pass through, but the real weight of "Never Too Late" is completely carried by its main two stars. As an optimist, I think this story is an authentic tale of reconciliation and an understanding between two people that love once shared is still a tangible aspect of life - even years after the fact. It's a bond that is established and can never really be broken. I've often thought it's crazy when I see big, giant, messy breakups – if people loved each other at some point, then shouldn't that guide how the process ends, too? I get that there can be all kinds of weird and awful circumstances that dictate the need for an ending…but at some point, there was love involved - in my opinion, that's something that should always inform our decisions on how we end things and to do that with respect. After all, wouldn't it say more about us if we didn't? If you just end up hating someone you spent all that time loving by the end, wouldn't that tell you more about you than it would say about them? That's how I see it. I guess in viewing relationships that way, whether it's friendships or love interests, you end up leaving the door open for the future and possibilities like what you'll see in "Never Too Late." Some folks want to close those avenues off forever, and some people, like myself, never want the story to end. Whether everything I think of when I'm watching a James Dubbeldam film is something everyone else would think of or not, I'll never know. I appreciate how this guy makes content that gets my wheels turning and my heart churning, and I can only hope other people out there get as much out of his work as I do. Whether he shows us something directly full-on or reveals something else by the absence of something you feel should be included, I'm willing to give this guy credit for intention – I think what he creates always has a purpose, and he has a genuine interest in making us consider what we see. I'll hedge my bets a little with my assessment and go with four out of five stars for "Never Too Late." – I know this is definitely interesting to me, but I could also understand if a few people out there felt like it was a bit too much like the life they know already, or a story that hits a lot closer to home than they wanna admit. However you slice it, I felt like this film was very much worth watching, and if you're among the optimistic type like I am, you'll find the core message of it is "Never Too Late" for love as encouraging & inspiring as it's meant to be. That part of this story is unmistakably intentional, 100%.  Join the new Facebook group geared toward Indie and Low-Budget filmmaking: production discussions, distribution discussions and a great place to share projects.
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