Don Shanahan
The motivations for time travel in movies range from delight to despair. For every sightseeing adventure of nostalgia and dalliance is someone else’s serious quest rooted in the desire to rectify a personal mistake or avert a calamity. For the latter, the characters hatching those time travel plans feel their lives would be drastically improved by the corrective measures of science fiction. Despair has led them to risky desperation. Crazy Rich Asians and Last Christmas star Henry Golding epitomizes one such man in the new independent film Daniela Forever.
For a premise like this, the first question immediately becomes identifying the past error or urgent disaster. More often than not, in the serious half of time travel movies, the need centers around a person they love. They are the “one that got away” or someone they lost, possibly even in death. There’s a good chance every film viewer, hopefully, has exactly that type of important person from their life they would move heaven and earth and time and space to see and interact with again.
Several years ago, Nicholas (Golding) tragically lost the love of his life, the titular Daniela, played by The White Lotus cast member Beatrice Grannò. Through a reminiscent narration, Daniela Forever introduces how the two first met. He was a club DJ in Madrid, and she was dancing. Nicholas and Daniela crossed paths without connecting that night, but once they locked eyes for the first time, they were lovestruck. As we realize this is an envisioned flashback and Daniela is gone, her recollected vision calls to Nicholas that she’s here “in your memories.”
The once-eclectic and engaging Nicholas has been a morose shell of his former self for these many years. He’s become more slovenly and reclusive, only reaching out to the visiting Victoria (Nathalie Poza of Julieta), a common friend of Daniela’s who has taken it upon herself to keep tabs on Nicholas. Desperate, Nicholas registers for an experimental sleep study program, which uses a chemical compound in pill form. The powerful drug grants the patient detailed, lucid dreams with full memory retention afterwards. He sees this program as his chance to feel and spend time with Daniela again.
As dreams become the vessel of time travel for Daniela Forever, the relatable “what would you do” scenarios bubble to the surface for the movie’s viewers. Who would you choose to dream about if you could? Who is your Daniela? Which memories would you choose? How fantastical would you get with this possibility? Enjoy those chin-rubbing and eye-closing personal asides.
Daniela Forever writer-director Nacho Vigalondo, known best for the 2016 Anne Hathaway monster movie Colossal, which also bent its share of reality, clearly separates Nicholas’s two worlds aesthetically and dances between those stylings. Nicholas’s active present is boxed by a more-squared aspect ratio and commonly appears with camcorder-like resolution. Through lighting shifts and smooth scene transitions, the dream sequences of Daniela Forever, in contrast, get the prettiest and sharpest treatment. Their widescreen aspect ratio, pristine visual detail, and beautified brushstrokes of sly visual effects give the illusion that they are more real than the other footage. Both also pulse with different musical energy from Catalan pop band Hidrogenissse working through the instrumental score. This enveloping sensory interplay serves the story well and looks excellent for a smaller-budgeted independent film.
Nicholas ignores the scripted protocols set by the medical researchers to examine lost childhood memories. Feeding the interviewers pretend stories from his youth, Nicholas instead exploits the medication’s potential power. Each night for the first trial month, he dives into his memories of Daniela, not just reliving them as they were, but broadening them into fuller and corrected experiences with his consciousness’s ability to pause, rewind, and reimagine what happened in the past. Over time in Daniela Forever, he’s created an entirely new personal history between himself, Daniela, her ex-girlfriend Theresa (Stockholm’s Aura Garrido), Victoria, and their other mutual friends.
When Henry Golding and Beatrice Grannò relive and refresh the surreal time lapses and selective moments during the dreams of Daniela Forever, the two actors enjoy a warmly romantic arc that explores their characters’ formerly deep bonds and frayed areas of contention. Their many conversations are filled with wonderings that transform into new goals to construct. Comedically, at times, Grannò has to play these scenes like a frozen mannequin or reprogrammed robot experiencing short processing lags when Golding’s protagonist changes something. Even while discombobulated to a degree, she is a fetching love interest. As the movie goes on, each imperfection gets messier for the two.
Above all, Daniela Forever is a showcase expanding the previous boundaries of Henry Golding’s charisma. Allowed to play a god in his own mind, Henry allows Nicholas to regain a glow of giddiness for being in love. Even if a level of selfish yearning has brought his character to these moments, the genuine affection emanating from Golding is tangible. Likewise, he convincingly takes Nicholas to distressingly low places of grieving when his desires are lost or taken from him. Altogether, this is the fullest performance range we’ve seen from the 38-year-old heartthrob. He’s the biggest reason to take a chance on Vigalondo’s film, and this level of control is something he deserves to show more often in future casting.
The hypothetical consideration of time traveling for love, even in this medically induced manner of Daniela Forever, carries an instant appeal. That commonality of challenging the human condition of mortality in favor of romance has tickled our brains and pulled our heartstrings before in movies, big and small, like Somewhere in Time, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Press Play, The Greatest Hits, About Time, and even The Butterfly Effect and Safety Not Guaranteed. Daniela Forever has the empathy, drama, and draw to be a welcome new entry into that date night subgenre.
