"I'll Follow You Down" is just out on DVD and it's certainly not a typical sort of sci-fi film. It's a lot slower, more deliberate and a bit more cerebral than many films in the genre, but if you are patient I think it's worth your time.

When the film begins, a professor goes off on a business trip and never returns. Exactly what happened and where he is now is a complete mystery. Unfortunately, his family does not handle his disappearance well. His wife (Gillian Anderson) becomes very depressed and over the following dozen years, she attempts suicide repeatedly. His son, Erol (played as an adult by Haley Joel Osment),is a mess as well and abandons his extremely promising career in favor of staying home and keeping an eye out on his unstable mom. He's also trying to balance his relationship with his girlfriend...and he's having a poor time with all these pressures. As for the disappeared man's father, Sal (Victor Gerber),he's also got his problems. To put it bluntly, they're all a mess. However, there is a strange and unbelievable chance that all this mess can be avoided when Sal looks through his son's notes and realizes that the guy MIGHT have disappeared when he tried out a time machine. He might have gone back to the 1940s and somehow never found his way back. Can he and his super-genius grandson, Erol, somehow construct their own time device and prevent the disappearance in the first place...and thus save the family?

If you want a film to jump into the action, this is NOT a film for you. The work to create this second time machine didn't even begin until about 2/3 of the way through the film and many folks will be annoyed by this slow pace. However, I didn't mind because once the film finally got moving, it really paid off well. The ending also manages to offer some surprises--something that seems to happen too infrequently.

In addition to an interesting plot, I liked seeing an adult Osment. His career has been a bit slower of late as he's clearly not some gifted child actor anymore and much of his recent work has been done doing voiceovers for video games. While not looking anything like a typical leading man, he was nice in the film--and Gerber and Anderson were also very, very nice. Overall, I'd recommend this film mostly because it is so unique.

Gabriel (Rufus Sewell) disappears during a business trip. His wife Marika (Gillian Anderson) is left to raise their son Erol. Twelve years later, Erol (Haley Joel Osment) is a student of his grandfather Sal (Victor Garber). He tells him about his father possibly traveled back in time to 1946. Erol starts working on their own time machine while his girlfriend Grace informs him about her pregnancy. She fears his interference changing their relationship.

This does not have enough tension. It has no intensity. Haley Joel Osment is limited as the leading man. The lead in the first act is actually Gillian Anderson. This is basically a long extended sci-fi TV. In fact, I would cut it down to 46 minutes and make a pretty good hour long TV episode. This doesn't have the flash of even the smallest sci-fi indies. The premise is fine but there isn't enough to bulk it up.

The sci fi mystery movie is a genre of film that is sadly almost non existent. So when they come along hopes are high, the likes of The Adjustment Bureau, Limitless, The Forgotten, all superb films. When I saw Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell heading this up I was so excited.

Sadly one the hype had gone, and I settled into the film, I found it quite boring, the concept was huge, they could have done and gone anywhere, bit sadly we got too much melodrama, we could have had Einstein, we could have had huge scale events, but instead we got domestic goings on, so disappointing.

Anderson was excellent as you'd expect, but the film was stollen by Haley Joel Osment, who was brilliant.

It's not bad, it just fails to ignite.