One day after class, Aidan (Chris Gibson) runs into what appears to be himself, warning him to stay away from a local motel. The encounter troubles Aidan enough that, after conferring with friends and family, he reconnects with an ex, Lauren (Dana Kronental). Unfortunately, while driving Lauren home, Aidan gets into a car accident, resulting in her death.
While in the hospital, the local motel is mentioned to Aidan again, this time by a fellow patient (David Macrae), convincing Aidan to investigate. Which is where he finds that climbing into a hole through the floor in one of the rooms enables Aidan to travel back in time by a day. Can Aidan change the future, and save Lauren? What other consequences exist due to the casual, motel time travel?
Like almost any film with time travel as a core component of the narrative, you can wind yourself up something bonkers if you want to do so; if you’re trying to find the rational explanation for why what works and how. I can’t stop you or your mind from traveling to those places, mine did from time to time, but ultimately it doesn’t matter.
I mean, has anyone explained how Bill Murray’s character kept re-living the same day over and over again in Groundhog Day via time travel or the like? No, we just accepted that he was living the same day over and over. In many ways, Glenn Triggs’ feature film 41 has more in common with Groundhog Day than, say, something like Back to the Future or Looper. Sure, the narrative is different, but spiritually certain elements of the personal progression necessary for Murray’s character to break free of Groundhog Day are the same elements necessary for Aidan to address his own tragic loop.
Again, though, you can out-and-overthink yourself to death with this one. Nevertheless, it is a fairly engrossing science fiction mystery of sorts, and overall the film deserves credit for taking the idea of time travel and portraying it on a more easily relatable, personal level. And lest I forget about the technical aspects of the filmmaking involved, there’s nary a stumble.
Visually the film is wonderful to look at, with compelling and varied composition that enhances the film instead of distracting. In the end, 41 is not only technically put together well, it comes together on all the proper narrative and emotional levels too.
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