Review: 'Tom of Your Life' A Brief Candle that Sheds Little Light

Despite a clever title and an inventive premise unseen by my American eyes, "Tom of Your Life" fails to find insight into life or any of its characters before its expected end.

The film tells the story of a desperate nurse who kidnaps a baby from the hospital she works at because he inexplicably ages four years every hour. She decides she is the best person to show him what life is all about, knowing that by the next morning the boy will have died from old age.
While the Dutch film "Life in One Day" (based on the book by A.F. Th. Van der Heijden) tackled a very similar concept on a bigger scale, "Tom of Your Life" takes a less grand approach.

Baize Buzan plays nurse Jess, while Tom is played by four actors, with a majority of the role (ages 32 - 104) curiously going to writer/director Jer Sklar. It's curious because it's clear the filmmaker is somewhere in his late 40s or 50s, and his trying to play a 32-year-old character is a bit of a stretch, and distracting.

Most of the movie is the two characters driving in the car, with Jess attempting to give Tom experiences that might be meaningful while also traveling to downtown Chicago to see an old professor/fling who might be able to help understand what is going on with Tom.

The problem is that the script doesn't fully go where it needs to go. There are some nice moments, like when Tom tells Jess that the experiences she chooses for him aren't the experiences he wants. At other times, though, the film feels aimless.

For example, when Tom at 20 gets insanely horny and doesn't understand it, Jess gives him some privacy to masturbate. Had the movie had the balls, Jess could have given him a sexual experience, knowing full well he'd be dead by morning. It could have been a touching scene, but instead, it's a moment played for laughs.

A subplot involves Jess's issues with her old professor and the restraining order he has out on her. It seems she has loved a number of older men, and none of it is explored enough to make us care or understand the point of the film. At times Tom's story gets lost, and that is where the focus should be.

For half of the movie, Tom gets lost in the city and has frat-boy type experiences (drinking and, finally, sex) but it doesn't have any emotional impact. We never find out why Jess took him, either. In the end, she wants to let the aged Tom finally meet his parents, and the only thing I could think was, "You literally just denied this guy his family, and denied them their son," which makes her incredibly selfish and unlikeable.

The concept is strong and Buzan is good, but it was hard to care for anyone on screen, nor the journey they embarked on. The title might be a play on words, but the time of your life you won't have.