Back to the Future

(1985)

Dir: Robert Zemeckis

If you were born any time from 1980 to 1990, you know the kind of films I’m talking about when I use the old cliché “films of your childhood.” E.T, Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark and, for most normal people, Star Wars and Back to the Future.

There was obviously something wrong with the television in my house growing up. I have absolutely no memory of watching either of those films until I reached the ominous teenage status. My parents assured me that I saw them, which leads to me to the conclusion ... didn’t I like them then? Re-watching the Star Wars Trilogy, I’m not too concerned that I might have been apathetic as a sprog to Jedi’s and Ewok’s, but not liking Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 time travel adventure is frankly baffling.

Featuring one of the most entertaining and endearing double-acts in cinematic history in Michael J. Fox’s hip, hop ‘n’ happenin’ Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd’s bonkers Doc Brown, it’s impossible not to fall in love with. When we talk about going back in time, we all say we’d do things like kill Hitler or punch Jesus, but what we’d all really like to see is what those mysterious figures we call ‘Mum and Dad’ were like before we arrived to ruin their lives. Back to the Future deals with this fantasy in a manner that’s smart, witty and cringe-worthy at the same time. Marty’s own mother (Lea Thompson) falling for him? That’s awkward. Crispin Glover too, is fantastic as George McFly, Marty’s hapless father, making the transition from adult to teenager and back again seem perfectly natural.

I only wish I could have got as much out of Back to the Future as a snuggler, so that I could place it alongside heavyweights like E.T. and Jurassic Park. But I can’t. Oh well. It’s still a testament to its enduring appeal that even watching today, I can still be dazzled, I can still be swept away and, best of all, I can feel like a child again.

**** ½ / *****

“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

....

Consider time travel as a narrative device. More likely than not, said film playing out in front of you is really very dark and I would suggest probably not a comedy. This is because Back to the Future is a unique film.

The time travel sub-genre – if you want to call it that – is generally hung up on the negative. Back to the Future meanwhile is all about the positive.

Time travel stories have a unique ability to bend their narratives back around on themselves and as such there is a tendency for them to be very convoluted. This is a trap Back to the Future avoids falling into through a focus on one man’s life and nothing else.

The allure to go somewhere bombastic with your narrative – the very future of the Earth, the universe, or the planet Romulus – is an area that alas many wander into. The very intrigue of time travel is to be found I suspect in the less grandiose. The real appeal from a storyteller’s point of view is that any decision, no matter how insignificant, can render massive changes on the future timeline.

The truly original innovation in Back to the Future is that instead of having this reaction be instantaneous, it develops slowly and visibly on the photograph that Marty has of his family. The images on it gradually vanish as the future Marty is a part of becomes increasingly unlikely to ever occur.

The effect is that the biggest antagonist in the film is not Biff. It is the encroachment of time which is far more threatening.

The erosion of the future over the length of the movie gives it a palpable sense of tension, which could really be quite frightening if it were not for the right tone. Luckily though, the brilliant script is the key ingredient in getting this right. It’s not much of a surprise therefore that the film ranks amongst the most enduring classics of both the Science Fiction and Family genres.

****^1/4 /*****