Tomorrow, Maybe is a drama about a father reconnecting with his daughter, whose life is suddenly falling apart.
There’s an early moment in director Jace Daniel‘s minor drama Tomorrow, Maybe that begins like an act of apology but evolves into a moment of deep revelation that only the audiences is given sight of. It’s precisely when our sympathies are tested. It doesn’t excuse a single thing the character has done leading up to that supposed apology but instead throws on to an already troubling story something unexpected.
Walking free from a five-year stint in jail, Lloyd Hayek (Robert Blanche) has a lot on his shoulders, never that much there for his only daughter Iris (Bethany Jacobs) but now hoping for a second chance. Taking a job as a dishwasher, promising to himself he will change his life, he reaches out to her, though she is initially unwilling, distrustful of a father who has mostly abandoned her. Meanwhile, she is now married to Bobby (Grant Davis), a detective with a serious drinking problem (and a secret that rattles him to his core) who recently got violent, beating Iris in sudden fits of rage. It’s a significant shift in their long relationship while she struggles to deal with a world that is slowly collapsing around her.
Each of the three complicated people get equal time, Daniel careful to give balance to all ends of the triangle, though it is Iris who remains the fulcrum at dead center. This leaves her in a few particularly raw moments where we are witness to the codependency of an abusive relationship as she fights with a genuine love for Bobby, going ‘blind’ to his anger in the wake of kindness. It’s hard to watch. When we follow Bobby however – without giving away spoilers – we discover an authentic source for his pain and an earnest hate within himself for what’s happening. What’s potent about this is how it doesn’t alter our feelings for him and his treatment of Iris but better define who he is and why things end as they do. It’s smart because most movies with a guy like this just use one shade of grey to color them in. It’s good to see some effort in finding broader dimensions in a potentially trope-ish character.
However, its flaw is its trendy use of staging the ending at the start and then working backwards in flashback, a narrative device that has worn well thin and in a movie like this, doesn’t work because we know right away an outcome that leaves us meant to guess. Mystery is not something a movie like this needs. More so, that outcome, which you think is one thing, becomes another and in so doing, sort of feels necessary since it doesn’t follow through, stripping away real consequence and then padding out to a final scene that for the first time in the movie, feels forced, arriving after a fade to black that should have been it end. It’s too bad because it absolutely feels like it could have been something different.
Either way, as an independent film with a small budget, this is nonetheless a very well written effort with three strong performances that steer the whole thing into places that are not often explored. It may lack the polish of a big studio production but isn’t for a moment cheap about its commitment as it handles its potentially contrived themes with uncommon maturity. There’s nothing flashy or manipulative in how it unravels these moments, and deserves credit for how it does so, despite how it brings it all to a close. Tomorrow, Maybe is a strong debut from Daniel.