With the exception of Back to the Future (1985), i can’t recall a film using time travel as a premise and not completely dividing audiences and critics alike. In fact, it would seem that time travel has become a clear recipe for automatic B movie classification in the minds of most people (films such as The Butterfly Effect (2004) do little to help this bad reputation). Since the majority of the world continues to regard the possibility of time travel as pure fantasy, it is indeed difficult to imagine why these same people would approach a time travel film seriously. And that is unfortunate, since this immediate negation of the possibility of time travel clearly has an effect on one’s ability to assess these films in a fair manner.

With The Jacket for example, a film that deals with a hospitalized gulf war veteran being able to project himself into the future after being injected with hallucinogenic drugs and being locked up in a drawer (this strange treatment, concocted by a mad doctor played by Kris Kristofferson, is part of a shock therapy for violent patients), most critics seemed unable to take seriously the idea of time traveling from one’s mind and by being placed in a tight and closed-in environment such as a drawer. I suppose some kind of nice helper device such as a time machine or a tunnel wrapped in plastic foil, or even a never fully explained elaborate apparatus might make it a bit easier, but a drawer just doesn’t cut it. Also, there is the usual tendency to identify time travel inconsistencies and to seek a clean resolution without any open issues or questions. Any loose end that remains at the end only fills the already uncertain viewer with additional doubt and ambiguity.

I realized some time ago that, not only is time travel possible (after all, who are you not to trust Albert Einstein?), but also that we no longer need to be afraid of inconsistencies. As the theory of parallel universes grows in popularity, it provides an interesting way to approach time travel and to envision different scenarios playing into the future. In The Jacket, the character played by Adrian Brody seems to be capable of transporting himself into the future, or perhaps, into a parallel universe, with only his brain as a catalyst. The drawer and the drugs are enablers (this also formed the basis for the excellent 1980 film Altered States), as is the fact that his brain structure has probably been rearranged by the wound shot he received during the war, but there is no external device that helps him achieve this. Only his mind. Is this far fetched? Perhaps a bit but that does not make it impossible. As i explained in my review of Jumper (2008) and of The Connectivity Hypothesis, there is plenty about the mind we do not know and have forgotten. Could the unlocking of various regions of our brains allow us to teleport ourselves or to time travel? After all, there is mounting evidence that ESP, telepathy, levitation, telekinesis and other supposedly ‘paranormal’ activities might in fact be the products of minds that have learned to reprogram or restructure themselves, or perhaps even more simply, to open themselves to long lost possibilities.

The Jacket has some good performances and an appealing cinematography. Directed by the artistically inclined John Maybury, the film is slow and deliberate, which, again, if one is not buying into the material, will make it seem arrogant and tedious. Shot in the cold snowy winters of Quebec and Scotland, the atmosphere is heavy and dreary and adds nicely to the feelings of madness and confusion experienced by the lead protagonist. A better than average film, the Jacket falls somewhere between the scary intensity of Jacob’s Ladder (1990), the intriguing modernity of Donnie Darko (2001) and the strong visuality of Stay (2005).