Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Morena Baccarin, Colman Domingo, Serinda Swan, Tony Hale, Jordan Peele, Hamza Fouad, Javcie Dotin, Natalie Goyarzu, James Kot, Darren Dolynski, Andrew Lo, Jacob Machin, Aason Nadjiwan, M.J. Kokolis, Zac Siewert, Miriam Smith, Sandy Robson, Ingrid Libera.
We all have daydreamed about being somebody else, perhaps even have a specific image in our minds of how we would look, our standing, our gender, if we had the choice offered us, rather than the one we inherit thanks to our genes and the luck of the draw when it comes to conception.
To be someone else used to take effort, the reinvention of the self, which still would leave traces our own distinct personality intact and one that was fraught with social dangers and leave us vulnerable if our true nature, for those that wanted to walk the walk in The Twilight Zone, were to be discovered.
In the world we inhabit, its ever consuming lifestyle, the fast paced drive to the destruction that capitalism enshrines and which destroys body, soul and the dreams we have nurtured, it is no surprise that people are turning more to escapism, of embracing a role in life that does not depend on the person we are, but on who we see ourselves as. It is why games such as Sim City have become ever more explorative in bringing the ideal version of us to the fore.
Downtime is a Jordan Peele-shaped mirror of this ever-engaging world to which many are embracing, and whilst it might be considered the simplest story told on the 21st Century version of The Twilight Zone, it is one that arguably will resonate the most with the viewers and the fans of the off-kilter tales of suspense and intrigue; and all because of how we now see ourselves as merely existing, passing time between one breath and the other, not taking part in a world that has passed us by.
If we can be anything we want to be, then why wouldn’t we choose to be the hero of our own story, why wouldn’t we find ways to live a better life in a fabricated word of illusion and computer simulation if it meant we were happy. For that is the point of such escapism, to be in a place that serves our soul rather eating away at its rotten core.
The problem for hotel manager Michelle Weaver, played superbly by Morena Baccarin, is that she has no idea what is about to happen to her, the world around her just suddenly seems to stop, to grind to a halt as every human is entranced by the appearance of a giant ball in the sky, counting down to the end.
In the end Downtime is about choices, the ones we make to avoid the life we have grown tired of, the need for something different without the effort of doing it from within. Such is modern living, the aches and pains we suffer as the rainforests burn, as infectious diseases take our loved ones, as extreme political ideology rears its ugly fanatical head once more; would you not want to escape that and live the perfect life instead.
Ian D. Hall