Erin Bethea – Through the Shattered Lens

The plot of 2015’s 77 Chances may seem familiar.

Jason Shaw (Andrew Cheney) is an aspiring photographer who works as a clerk in a store owned by his sister, Ava (Erin Bethea). One day, Jason meets a woman named Mac (Rachel Hendrix) and it’s attraction-at-first-sight. That night, they go on a date and they have an amazing time. They start bonding instantly. Jason feels as if he’s finally found his soul mate. Unfortunately, the date ends with a car crash that leaves Mac dead.

The next morning, Jason wakes up without a scratch on him. Convinced that he’s just woken up from the most intense dream of his life, Jason goes about his day and he’s immediately hit by a sense of deja vu. He feels like he knows what people are going to say and do before they do it. Everything about the day feels very familiar. And then, once again, he meets Mac….

Yep, Jason is stuck in a Groundhog Day-style time loop. He relives the same day over and over again. Once Jason realizes that this is actually happening to him and that it’s not a dream, he assumes that he’s in the time loop to save Mac. But, no matter he does, the car accident always occurs and Mac always dies at the end of the night. Even when he specifically goes out of his way not to meet her and spends the entire day locked away in his apartment, he still sees a news story about her death in a car accident.

What if Jason hasn’t being sent through the time loop just to save Mac? What if there’s something else that he has to do first?

77 Chances is a sweet film. Yes, it does have a religious angle and that will probably turn off some viewers but who cares? Actually, when you think about it, the idea of God making someone live the same day over and over again makes more sense than the solutions that are typically offered up in time loop films. For my part, I appreciated that Jason wasn’t being forced to live the same day over and over again for the reason that everyone would naturally assume. I love Groundhog Day and Palm Springs but, for the most part, most time loop films suffer because they always tend to hit the same notes. 77 Chances works because it actually tries to do something unexpected with the idea.

77 Chances also works because of the chemistry between Andrew Cheney and Rachel Hendrix. They make for a cute couple and you really do hope that things will work out for them. They just seem to belong together. Rachel Hendrix, in particular, gives a strong and likeable performance as Mac. It’s interesting to see the different ways that she reacts to being approach by Jason over the course of the time loop. While Jason has spent months getting to know her, Mac has no idea who he is. Early on in the time loop, when Jason comes on too strong, Mac blows him off and tells him that his obsessiveness is creepy. Good for her!

77 Chances left me pleasantly surprised. It’s a sweet movie.

The 2013 film, This Is Our Time, opens with a college graduation and a voice-over from Ethan (Shawn Culin-Young), who explains that everyone goes through four stages when they go to college. The first stage is being excited about getting away from home and being on you own. The second and third stages are about settling down, choosing your major, and maybe meeting the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. The fourth stage is all about looking forward to graduation and finally getting to enter the real world.

This Is Our Time follows the story of five friends as they discover what comes after the fourth stage. For two of them, it’s making a living as corporate workers and being pressured to behave unethically. For two others, it’s marriage and a new life working as missionaries in India, ministering to the needs of leprosy sufferers and their children. For Ethan, it means giving up his dream of being a writer and working as a waiter at his father’s bar. But, as Ethan warns us in his narration, one of the five is not going to be alive in a year. The movie follows the friends as they deal with death and try to learn how to live.

Some of the acting is a bit stiff and the attempt to capture the feel of corporate America feels rather comical. (Erik Estrada glowers his way through the role of a dishonest executive.) But, at the same time, the film does end with a message from the founder of Embrace a Village, which actually does provide support for people dealing with Leprosy and the guy is so sincere that it kind of makes you feel guilty for all the snarky thoughts that you had while watching the movie. Whatever else you might want to say about the film, the intentions are good and there’s something to be said for that.

Add to that, Eric Roberts is in the film. Roberts plays Ethan’s father and he brings a lot of genuine emotion to the role. The scene where he breaks down behind the bar in response to having gotten some bad news is well-done. Roberts is kind of famous for accepting almost any role that’s offered to him and he’s said that he hasn’t actually watched the majority of the films in which he’s appeared. Who knows if Roberts actually watched this film but, regardless, his performance was definitely the highlight.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed: