Needle in a Timestack is based on a Robert Silverberg Science Fiction short story. The movie is about Nick Mikkelsen (Leslie Odom Jr.) and the situation of romantic love in his life as an adult. In a world beset by “time quakes” everything can change and memories can be lost.
Nick falls in love with and marries Janine (Cynthia Erivo) after Janine was married to and divorced from their mutual good friend Tommy (Orlando Bloom). Tommy time travels from the present where Nick and Janine are married to the fix the past mistake of allowing his marriage to Janine to fall apart. The time jaunt is successful, although it was a time crime, and now in the revised present, Tommy is married to Janine, and Nick is married to Alex (Freida Pinto).
Nick figures out that his timeline has been tampered with and decides to time jaunt in an effort to make things right. When Nick returns to the present, he struggles with loneliness and is neither married to Janine nor Alex after going back to the past and persuading Alex that Tommy is the right person for her.
Nick’s tampering with Time leaves the possibility of his future relationship with Janine. But all this manipulation of Time can be confusing. The ending is open-ended. GRADE: B
I like time travel stories so I will try it. And probably be confused.
Patti, Robert Silverberg’s story is NOT confusing. But this movie…
I used to be a sucker for time travel yarns but I have to say I’m pretty burned out on them. So few tell a good story or evoke the wonder of traveling to another era. Most of them seem to quickly go down the now tiresome mystery box route with nothing much to say.
Byron, most writers introduce Time Travel paradoxes and never resolve them.
I wasn’t even aware of this, but I’ll probably give it a try. Unless it’s something they’re making a big deal of, like WHEEL OF TIME or the new REACHER, Amazon doesn’t do much to publicize their programming. My other streamers, especially Netflix and HBO Max bombard me with email about even minor stuff.
Michael, HULU, HBO Max, and Netflix email me daily about their offerings, too.
I started seeing pop ups for this on Prime (or is it Netflix) a couple of days ago. Of course, I’ve read the Silverberg story. We like time travel stories so will probably try this, even though it sounds more confusing than the story, which I remember pretty well.
I get ads from Netflix and MHz Choice all the time.
Jeff, I read about A NEEDLE IN A TIMESTACK in the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Like you, I read Silverberg’s story back in the 1980s. I’ve had good luck watching movies on AMAZON Prime Video so I watched A NEEDLE IN A TIMESTACK. While I get plenty of “notifications” from Netflix and HULU and HBO, AMAZON rarely pesters me.
Not a Silverberg fan, didn’t like the story, would dislike the movie.
Rick, Robert Silverberg’s “A Needle in a Timestack” is better than this movie version.