Denise (Freya Tingley) and Johnny (Charles Grounds) are drug buddies living in present-day Melbourne. When they’re not getting high, they spend their time mooching about, bickering, and arguing about whether some of the fancier words Johnny uses are real. (Funnily enough, most of the time they are.) They are what the cops might uncharitably describe as no-hopers.
In what turns out to be a labyrinthine time-travelling plot, one day, the dirty duo’s regular drug dealer, Kane (Joshua Morton), sends them on a mission to a dilapidated house to steal a bag full of crystal meth, a chore that will clear their debt to him. Kane warns them not to try the supply, but of course garrulous Johnny does and within seconds he evaporates with a snap and whoosh of wind right before Denise’s face. In an edit, he finds himself in the same house but 25 years or so in the past, when the home was in better nick and occupied by jumpy former undercover cop Tracey (Elise Jansen). In the present, meanwhile, Denise meets her future self who is also using the time-travel meth and has come back to give her a warning. The rest of the movie skips back and forth, using the same location and four actors, until it gradually reveals the fundamental relationships between the characters and periods.
Nerdy viewers can watch and nitpick over whether the sci-fi logic makes any sense, but it’s clear that writer-director Sam Odlum is less interested in quantum mechanics than in crafting a surreptitiously affecting “fairytale for cunts” – to quote a phrase Denise mutters early on. And like a good fairytale, there is a lot of business with lost relatives, secret identities and people stuck in magically enchanted locations that help to keep the budget low. Grounds and Tingley in particular keep their performances just on the biting point between broadly comic and genuinely vulnerable, making for a viewing experience that is altogether more enjoyable than a bare-bones plot description suggests.
• Time Addicts is released on 25 September on the Icon Film Channel and on 27 October in UK cinemas. In Australia, it will screen at Monster Fest in Melbourne in October, ahead of a 7 December cinematic release.
