If nothing else, I now know how to say: “I love you” is science-nerd speak: “Iodine Livermorium Uranium.” For non-chemists out there, Those are three elements properly abbreviated as “I Lv U.” Awwwwwwww. Isn’t that sweet? Scientifically puerile and irrelevant to anything useful but sweet. Kinda like this time travel movie set in Mexico City.
Héctor (Benny Ibarra) and his partner Nora (Lucero) are scientists living in Mexico of 1966, a time and place where scientific breakthrough is equally as common as equality for women, which is to say, not very. Héctor cannot help if he’s a misogynist; this is his time and place. But it does make me wonder how he managed to attract Nora, who is -quite clearly- a closet feminist.
With all the science of Back to the Future [read: none] and none of the fanfare, Héctor and Nora manage to transport themselves to 2025. The political campaign outside their timelab reading “The future is today” is about as clever/ironic as this film gets. It couldn’t be more apparent that upon arriving in 2025, Héctor and Nora are -how shall I put this?- “fuddy duddies.” Is there a Spanish term for fuddy duddies? Dictionary sez: chapado a la antigua. Literally “plated ancient.” Ok, that will suffice. Also acceptable was “dinosaurio.”
The film asks us to go through the normal time travel concerns: Where am I? How did we get here? What changed? Who died? How do I make this better? Etc. Our Times chose a focus of how society has changed a great deal more rapidly than technology has changed.
Really?
That can’t possibly be true, can it? Civil Rights legislation happened in the US prior to 1966. There are clearly millions of people who somehow think we can get back to the 1950s. That’s the social. Technologically, in 1966, every phone call 
was “KLondike 5-1234.” Moon landing was inconceivable. In 2025, every adult person and most children walk around with a device more technologically advance *in every way* than the tech that put men on the moon. I mean, yeah, we have made social advances, but the social outpaced the technical? I do not think so. Not in a world where Trump can be elected to a second term. That happens when a world is socially constipated.
The conflict here is that Nora has adjusted to 2025 quite well while Héctor, the mastermind behind time travel, has not. Oh well. Whatchagonnado?
I like that Mexico went all in on a sci-fi, but none of the specs are terrific. Neither the screenplay nor the cinematography is worth any commentary and I kept wondering why newly awakened Nora would even give Héctor’s misogynistic ways the time of day. It turns out 1966 and 2025 are different times? Gosh, really? You don’t say.
There was once scientist named Héctor
Who hit upon just the right vector
To fling years ahead
Yet finds, to his dread,
The future is less angel than spectre
Not Rated, 90 Minutes
Director: Chava Cartas
Writer: Juan Carlos Garzón, Angélica Gudiño
Genre: Viaje en el tiempo
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Your feminist grandmother
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: MAGA
