Midweek Mention... The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

Dan: Here we are. It's you and I, Reegs. Well, you and me.

Reegs: There's

Dan: There's many

ways to say it, but it all boils down to this is a duo, not a quad of pod. Still got the cough?

yeah, we bring that so

Reegs: This is the first of a two part kind of themed time loop special.

Dan: Yeah, and we don't know when these are going to appear which gives us all a little more of a time loop feel and thrill

Reegs: it. It's got its own temporal anomaly itself.

Dan: And so this one well both the the time loop ones we did boss level and we did the map of tiny perfect things. And which one would you like to do

first?

Okay, so everyone listening can hop on to the other one when they're ready. So yeah, I'd I'd started watching this before you and I wrote you into it.

We've seen

Reegs: I'd seen it

Dan: Day. You've seen this before. Okay. So for those that haven't Groundhog Day,

Reegs: Well, Palm Springs, I

Dan: Palm

Reegs: the one it is probably most reminiscent of. Because, like, time loop is now a kind of genre of its

Dan: It almost is, isn't it? I mean, we had time bandits. I think that was back 81, but that was very different. That was a film and they were jumping around. Different

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: Whereas Groundhog Day, which I think

Reegs: the

Dan: is the theme here where they just loop through the same day and the same things happen. And we wake up with Mark, who's Carl Allen.

He wakes up in his bed every morning. He hears his mum just talking. Beat the car as she heads off to work and he then goes downstairs. He's met by the same radio the same good morning from his father.

Reegs: his father. A little bit like Palm Street. He's so cool, isn't he? He's got everything

ahead.

Dan: bit like palm strings. He's just so cool, isn't he? He's, he's got everything ahead. He knows the cup that's gonna drop and he, he knows when the truck's gonna come by. He can

Reegs: carries on. Yeah, he gets a bike. He goes outside. He gives a guy who's running a little energy drink as he's going by

Dan: I really like these things.

Reegs: It's done in a terrific one take and it's there's also a really good soundtrack to this as well. So, it starts off with Junior Misa losing my grip and it'll go through a load of stuff like Fontaine's DC and some other cool bands.

Dan: And he's kind of heading to the pool. Because there's a, a girl there that he seems to be kind

Reegs: He sees her earlier on, doesn't he? He sees her she's looking for directions

and because he knows where she's going, he, the first time I think through the loop, he says, Oh, I'm Sherlock. And she's like, Oh, I love Sherlock and

Dan: That's right,

Reegs: cutesy, cutesy interaction.

But yeah, he's waiting by the pool to catch her because there's a moment that he's trying to time where she's about to be hit by this ball is in the swimming pool and he dramatically intercepts it and scoops her off on his date. Right.

Dan: his date Right. That's right. Yeah, And you get the feeling Obviously through the day that he's done this a few times before and then on I don't know if it's his first day or the second time we go through You Just as the ball is about to hit the girl, and which

leaves her falling into the pool, and he saves her

Reegs: Well, he goes, he goes on a very unsuccessful date, but well, a successful date, but it doesn't kind of end the time loop, you know, and he's subscribed.

He's talking to his mate later about Henry, because, you know, it's very sort of referential of the films. He sort of says to his mate, Oh, you know, I'm stuck in a time loop. And he's like, what, like in Groundhog Day or Edge of Tomorrow or whatever.

Dan: and his mates constantly playing the same video game and always dying at the same place and the same video game And you're right.

Yeah,

Reegs: he says like, Oh, you know, it would, I thought if I sort of met up with this girl, you know, true love is the thing that saves you through it, but it wasn't. And so he's back to his kind of life, which is kind of a performance, really a very superficial performance

Dan: back in the loop and he knows that he's pretty indestructible.

And that whatever he does, he's going to wake up in his bed. And that same day is going to repeat again until he goes back to the pool one day and something happens that hasn't happened before. And it's a girl. who, where the ball should hit this other girl and knock her into the pool, she just kind of intercepts it, hits it off and walks straight past him, not knowing that he is also trapped in this time loop.

He could just be another person. And all these other actors and people in the film unaware that they're in a time loop each time that they do it. And

Reegs: She appears to have free will.

Dan: exactly like he does. So he kind of follows her. He sees her pull away in the car. And she just hit in every car on the way through. She's a terrible driver.

She gives zero fucks. And he just, I think, collects a flyer which is the one clues to how we might meet her again. And it, it looks like he has a, a little bit of a, a problem in always remembering all the details that happened the day before. So he's kind of trying to memorize this number and this girl so he can go back to the pool at the same time that next time.

To have a interaction to to kind of see where where she's at and eventually does doesn't happen at Paul just happens outside it and he sees that she's there and she doesn't seem to be really freaked out by the fact that he's in a time loop with her she's kind of got somewhere else to go isn't

Reegs: Yeah, Margaret, her name is Catherine Newton. She's terrific actually. She was in Freaky and a couple of other movies. Yeah. So he, they, they, I'm trying to remember exactly what happens the first time they meet.

Dan: is more interested in the, in the fact that they're both caught in the time loop than she is. She seems preoccupied. She, she's kind of looking at her phone and goes, right, well, I'm off. Maybe we'll catch up

Reegs: a phone and goes, right, well I'm off, maybe we'll catch up tomorrow. He comes up with these ridiculous haircuts. He's like, he's like an Elvis haircut and he's got the Travis Bickle thing going on.

Dan: and he's

Reegs: maybe tomorrow. Yeah.

Dan: Travis Bickle thing going on.

Reegs: Well they, They bond

over these like, moments that they've sort of memorised in, in the world. This, the, the tiny perfect things, like stopping somebody from being shot on by a dog by a bird. Pigeon, sorry, or watching somebody get comically hit with a tennis racket ball like bounces off a post and smack some guy in the face.

Another one gets his jeans ripped like some asshole who's like being horrible to his missus.

Dan: And as it goes on, we, and they spend more, more, more time together. At one point she's in his room and she sees that he's an artist. He's always drawing. And every day he would spend time drawing in the morning and he maps out the, the whole town and the incidents that happen, this map of tiny, perfect little things that incidents.

That on their own, very, very small

Reegs: Including some of hers as well, like she takes him out to a lake and they watch as a an eagle grabs a salmon or something from the

Dan: That's right, and it's a really random one because he goes What the hell are you doing out here? Like, you know, it's right in the middle of nowhere.

How have you seen this happen at this time? And of course, knowing that it happens back the same day they've, they've raced to get there. Yeah. And

Reegs: she's like an astrophysicist type thing, and she's sort of also interested in this, like how they've become trapped in this thing.

She starts talking about four dimensional cubes and all this kind of stuff, which will come back in the kind of climax of the movie. And it's not long before, you know, it does become more romantic, right? The

Dan: Well

he's keen on her and

Reegs: keen on her and He's got a

Dan: year old med student

Reegs: year old med student Yeah,

Dan: Yeah and

they have various kind of confused conversations and misunderstandings. And you find out actually. She's had a really good reason for, for not turning up. And, and ducking out on the various adventures they've been on.

He, he's really keen to spend more time. But

Reegs: Well, he, he sets up this like elaborate, tranquil, she's extremes of being an astronaut, doesn't she? And he sets up this like cardboard tranquility base.

It's a beautiful, like, it's a big play that he makes big romantic gesture

Dan: And it's, it's Henry, I think, that gives him the advice of.

Give it, do something that you, you know, for her or what does she like doing? So he's done all this, it's clear his romantic intentions towards her. She's blown away by the effort that he's made. 'cause he's only got a day to do everything 'cause

Reegs: Yeah. But then when they come to have the big kiss, the big romantic moment, she, she ducks away, doesn't she? And she says that,

Dan: ever happened to you, Riggs?

Reegs: Oh, fucking millions of times. Yeah. Or, yeah.

Dan: a daily, daily occurrence. Yeah. Yeah, but it hurts. It hurts the, the, the first time and the last time. Just the same. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah, and he's depressed after this and he solicits advice from his sister who her football she's terrible at the She's playing this terrible violin. Although weirdly she gets progressively better over the movie There's a little I don't know what that is because she should be the same every time on the violin, but she doesn't seem to be

He gets some advice from her and essentially, she kind of says what we've all been thinking if you've been paying attention to the movie, which is you're very self absorbed, Kyle.

I mean, he's 17, right? So this is a very realistic depiction of what teenage male is like. And he hasn't noticed that his father, instead of like, they've had this falling out because every night they have a talk about his future and he's glib about his prospects. He doesn't feel he has any his father has quit his job to write this Civil War novel, and he throws that at him as an insult.

And his sister has pointed out that actually, no, his father was made redundant against his will. And he's like now having to, you know,

Dan: keep his head above water.

Reegs: He's doing something, he's in his fifties, he's lost his job. Like he's

Dan: he's

trying to be positive. Exactly. And and yeah, he was totally oblivious to that.

And he asked us, how do you know that? And he goes, how do you not? You know, how is it?

Reegs: And so he resolves to spend some more time like getting to know them as well. Right. So, because he does, eventually I think he goes to his sister's

Dan: match and he cheers her on

Reegs: actually score a goal. So they don't

Dan: every single loop they lose three nil every single day they lose three nil.

So when things start to happen differently then he thinks, Oh, maybe I'm on the right way towards something. You know, moving out of this, or, or, the,

Reegs: Well

he just takes on new experiences and I think one of the new experiences, there's been a recurring joke that they've seen.

One of their tiny, perfect things is this little girl who turns up to a bunch of skaters who are all like. doing a really bad ollie off the steps or whatever and she comes along and absolutely kills it and he goes and has a go at it hurts himself and ends up in hospital which is where he sees margaret and she's been disappearing every day at six o'clock to see her mother who is dying

Dan: Yeah. Who dies I think that

Reegs: dies that day.

Yeah. So every day in the time loop, Margaret goes to visit her mother to who dies.

Dan: die. Yeah. Every single day.

Reegs: So for her, the reason that she's not seemed very interested in closing the loop is because obviously it's tied to her grief and her unwillingness to let her mother go.

Dan: That's right. Yeah. I mean, he's at one point has the theory. Getting on a plane will Yeah. Allow him to fly out of the loop. He, he runs this past his physics teacher, I think, doesn't he? Yeah. And,

Reegs: gets on

Dan: all in, this is all in an effort to, to be a better him.

He starts going to school, he starts speaking to his dad and asking him about his book and his sister and seeing the football and spending time with his friend little bits and pieces. And eventually, yeah, he gets that ticket to Tokyo. She's on the plane with him. He puts on some headphones and one of those like kind of eyeballs. Protectors, what are they called? Eye muffs. Eye muffs. He puts on an eye muff. And and when he takes it off his eye, muff, she's gone. She's bolted. The door's locked. And that's kind of what spirals his depression a little bit because he doesn't get out. He wakes back up in his bed and he, there's no, there's no escape at this loop.

Reegs: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, he does learn all this stuff that I probably put in the wrong order there about Margaret just after that, I think after the time,

Dan: after the

Reegs: stuff about Margaret's mother dying.

Unless when he realizes actually, this is not my story at all. This is this is

Dan: Margaret's story.

Very much the, the, the feeling of, not being able to let go of the grief that she's suffering almost feels like that then is a day on a loop that's yeah

Reegs: and so we see a few loops through her life and then we see, I think what comes up to be essentially kind of the final loop where she goes, she wakes up one day, she finds the dog that they've been looking for the whole time and she goes to see Henry and she says, Oh, look, Henry, you don't know me.

I'm a good friend of Mark's. He's like, he's never mentioned you.

Dan: no. They've been seeing each other for months now, but and know each other really well. Maybe years. But Yeah, Mark is the best friend. Henry. Sorry. The best friend is never heard of him because each day it's just a loop for him, but she helps him get further than he's ever got on that video game.

Reegs: She knows a few secret tricks that he doesn't know. Yeah,

Dan: And, and he's just kind of totally, he's like, wow, I'm in love with her. She's amazing as well. But she's then finds mark.

Reegs: Yeah, well, no, that's when she, yeah, she comes up with the, it's while talking to him, Henry, that she has some idea that connects her to that four dimensional cube.

And I really wish they hadn't done this, but you know, they draw, they've drawn it earlier, this four dimensional cube on a wall. So she makes this fucking mobile thing out of it and cast shadows on the wall. And it helps her predict where the final tiny perfect thing is. Obviously the science is like just.

Totally ridiculous, but

Dan: Yeah, well,

Reegs: but it doesn't matter the final tile. Perfect

Dan: by the pool where we came in near enough

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: and and they're looking around for it. They know it's going to

Reegs: Well, no, it's mark, isn't

Dan: Yeah, yeah. Well, he's looking around for it because she's talking. Look, there's one more and he's kind of, I don't know, because he's already been knocked back.

For the kiss. Yeah. Which is going to be the, the last tiny, perfect little thing. And so he's not expecting it, but she knows what's coming and she pulls him towards him at, at 12 o'clock on the dot and gives him that kiss for that final perfect little thing.

Reegs: marked to help her move on through this period of grief and to let her mother go.

And to have a

Dan: up a little bit.

Reegs: Yeah, yeah.

Dan: And not to be so self absorbed. I mean, it's a teenage, common of age movie, isn't it? It

Reegs: It is. And I think if you take it in that spirit, like, you know, you might say, why with Palm Springs having trodden very similar ground not very long ago, but it is very specifically a teenage version of this story and it speaks to teenage anxieties and social, you know, there's a lot of thing about, oh, we're the only two people who are awake and all that kind of lingo going on.

And it's got this kind of Instagram filter aesthetic to it as well.

Dan: And it's really kind of, and clever with the performances

Reegs: They're very charming. The pair of them, and they've got good chemistry.

Dan: They do they have good chemistry to two young actors

So what was their name? It was Catherine Newton and Kyle Allen I enjoyed this. I, I thought it would, I hadn't seen it before. I kind of like these movies, you know, these time loop ones and, and this one, as they all done, they slightly got their own twist on it.

This, as you say, was probably closer to, to the Palm Springs one than others we've seen. It was still standalone. Good enough on itself for an hour and a half an hour and 40 minutes, whatever this came in at. I really enjoyed it. It was a nice, fun romantic comedy with this time element twist.

Yeah, pretty cool for

Reegs: Yeah, I also enjoyed it. It's got a very good soundtrack. The leads are very engaging. It's like very specifically and squarely aimed at teenage anxieties and the experiences of being a teenager and that sort of thing.

So, yeah, where the addition, I think to. And, that one