Jump Tomorrow is a genial indie-film-world take on the “a funny thing happened on the way to my nuptials” genre. Writer-director Joel Hopkins’ movie is a feature-length expansion of his popular festival-circuit short “Jorge” (which also starred Adebimpe in the title role) — a wise move for this NYU graduate’s first film as it resulted in a smoothly accomplished final product that shows few of the narrative hiccups common to first-timers’ projects. The performances are extremely good, and the tone maintains a droll continuity throughout. Despite its likability, however, Jump Tomorrow holds few narrative surprises or revelations. Adebimpe plays the buttoned-down Jorge, who we first meet as he’s waiting to greet his bride-to-be (Abrams) at the airport. It’s an arranged marriage and his bride is a childhood friend from Nigeria. But it turns out that Jorge has gotten the date wrong and his bride had arrived the day before — a screw-up that makes his guardian uncle apoplectic. The mistake brings two unplanned-for characters into Jorge’s life, who thereby introduce him to the possibilities of spontaneity and romance. Gerard (Girardot) is an impetuous Frenchman who’s been dumped by the woman to whom he has just proposed; Alicia (Verbeke) is a beautiful Spanish woman who is about to be married to an irritating Englishman (Wilby) who used to be her professor. Almost inadvertently, the story becomes a road trip as Gerard insists on driving Jorge to upstate New York where he is to be married. They travel in Gerard’s old Citroen, emblazoned with personalized license plates that read “AMOUR,” and pick up Alicia and her fiancé who are hitchhiking to Toronto. Of course, by the time the Citroen arrives in Niagara Falls, everyone has undergone a transformation — and true love finally wins the day. The title Jump Tomorrow is what passes for this movie’s wisdom: It’s the advice given to someone about to commit suicide by jumping off a rooftop. The film never gets more introspective than this, and perhaps the ongoing question the movie poses is whether or not Jorge can ultimately loosen up enough to go with the flow and succumb to love’s beckoning. Still, it’s all presented quite pleasantly, and also offers a quite unusual American movie stew of foreign accents. Jump Tomorrow is no leap of faith, but it’s a sweet journey nevertheless.
This article appears in August 3 • 2001.
