Looking back at Detroit in Time Now
By Moira Jean Sullivan
Time Now is a new independent film starring Jenny (Eleanor Lambert, the daughter of Diane Lane and Christopher Lambert), written and directed by Spencer King. Lambert as Jenny, who looks more like her father than mother, is investigating the death of her brother Gonzo (Sebastian Beacon) accompanied by her five-year-old son. Lambert returns to her hometown of Detroit with Rolling Stones t-shirt, once the center of the auto industry with palatial gas guzzling sedans still roaming the streets. One of the local joints Gonzo hung out is an African American nightclub with live music where her friend Tanja (Paige Kendrick)works. It is frequented by Kash, (Xxavier Polk) a rap recording artist who keeps his producer up all night in the studio. These scenes are some of the best in the film and the contrast with a dying city from the industrial age provide a great context.
Kash used to know Gonzo and tells Jenny they pushed each other as artists. Gonzo also had his back and kept from being arrested in front of his own house. Time Now shows the racial profiling that exists in Detroit with a local policeman that has nothing better to do with his time than harass African Americans.
At night Jenny’s dreams are filled with images of her brother covered in blood from a car accident. She left Detroit after a falling out with her family and is dismayed that things have not changed that much. She visits her mother (Jeannine Thompson), a daytime drinking alcoholic, and aunt (Claudia Black) who takes Jenny’s son to the local library and buys him chocolate donuts. The decision to re-trace the footsteps of her brother brings Jenny to the realization that this was someone that she did not really know but his death is a mystery to her that is complicated.
The title of the film is appropriate Time Now since this is not the Detroit Jenny once knew apart from the car relics. The sustained music heard throughout the film builds in momentum and is particularly eerie while driving through the streets of a sparsely populated Detroit. The unexpected ending gives Lambert her best moments.
Producer Disarming Film is a production company owned by Amy Berg, that specializes in documentary and social justice films.
Movie Magazine International
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