Mark Reviews Movies: THE MAP OF TINY PERFECT THINGS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 11, 2021

It's clear that the story conceit of a person or people living the same day over and over again has become a cinematic trend in recent years. It'll fade eventually (although, considering the movies that will be made in response to the ongoing pandemic and the shelter-in-place orders that resulted, it likely won't be soon), and hopefully, someone will do some kind of psychological or sociological study as to why there was an obvious influx in the plot gimmick during this particular period of time. Anyway, here's The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, which is about a pair of teenagers who are trapped in the same 16-hour period, without any idea as to why it's happening or how to escape the time loop.

It's tempting, as always, to compare this film to some of the recent ones that have used the same gimmick, but as always, there's little use and not much illumination that will come from such an exercise. After all, one of the unexpected surprises of the same-day-over-and-over-again trend is how diverse the storytelling and goals of these movies have been.

If we're going to make some kind of comparison to other movies using this plot device, it's best just to say that director Ian Samuels' film continues that trend-within-a-trend, as Lev Grossman's screenplay (based on his short story) gives us an amusing comedy and a sweet romance, before becoming about something far from funny, a bit bitter, and pretty melancholy. It's also directly empathetic about how one's own experiences and perspective can keep a person from understanding other people and, indeed, one's own place in the world. The film is smart and thoughtful and much more mature than its initial storyline and gimmickry suggest.

Mark (Kyle Allen) keeps waking up to his morning alarm on the same day. His mother is just pulling away in her car, heading to a long shift at work. His father Daniel (Josh Hamilton) and sister Emma (Cleo Fraser) are having breakfast in the kitchen. Dad is working on a book about the Civil War, which Mark sees as a sad and financially irresponsible form of mid-life crisis, and the sister offers the usual little-sisterly insults. Mark just dances around the kitchen, knowing where and when everything will happen, and around the awkward conversation.

He rides his bike through town, knowing where someone left his car key, when to hitch a ride on the back of a pickup truck, and which way to point a teenage girl (played by Anna Mikami), who is lost and has caught Mark's eye. He has lived this day long enough to believe that there must be a specific purpose to achieve or a goal to accomplish, and maybe it's getting a date with her. He explains this to his friend Henry (Jermaine Harris), who, like everyone else, is unaware of the time loop Mark is experiencing, which is probably good, since Henry keeps losing at the same video game every day.

There's a genial tone, as well as some clever staging (especially during that opening sequence through town) and dialogue, to this introduction, and then, Mark encounters Margaret (Kathryn Newton), a fellow teenager who interrupts his attempt to save his crush from falling into the public pool. It's as if this stranger knew exactly what was going to happen.

Margaret did, of course, because she's stuck in the same predicament as Mark. The two team up, jokingly commiserating over their temporal crisis, showing each other various sights and events that have caught their attention, and eventually coming up with a plan of possible escape. This day is filled with little, ideal moments, and maybe finding all of them is the reason they're trapped and the way to become un-stuck in time.

It's a fine and kind of lovely gimmick-within-the-gimmick, as Mark and Margaret hunt down beautiful and mysterious happenings in nature (a hawk catching a fish, a cloud forming a question mark, and birds flying away in silhouette against the illumination of town at dusk), nifty moments of coincidence (A man sitting on a bench looks to have wings when a delivery truck stops behind him), and an assortment of human connections and possibilities (The janitor of a music store plays a classical piece to perfection). The pair of temporal prisoners, of course, tell and show a lot about themselves in the process of trying to map out all these incidents.

If not for the fact that Margaret is hesitant about the potential complications and is called away at the same time on this day, there might be more to this quickly budding friendship. Newton and Allen are quite charming alone and together, diving into the pop-culture-heavy dialogue and the quieter moments with equal levels of sincerity.

To explain the call and Margaret's overwhelming sense of pessimism about her situation, obviously, would be to give away Grossman's biggest and most compelling plot development. The vital thing to note is how the revelation about Margaret's day becomes a life-changing revelation for the self-absorbed Mark. It's all about perspective, and as Mark realizes that his ordinary day filled with relatively inconsequential crises is also someone else's day about something incalculably consequential, the story shifts to Margaret and becomes about fear, loss, and the crushing fear of devastating loss.

It's compelling, not only because of what happens (and has to keep happening to poor Margaret), but also because of how the filmmakers frame her story. The Map of Tiny Perfect Things lets Margaret's story exist as her own, with all of the pain and anger and mourning that entails, and as an opportunity for Mark to consider others. In other words, we get a few good messages in a clever and compassionate film.

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