Seven In Heaven | Netflix Film Review

Alright, is it just me or did just about everyone else have more fun in high school than I did? Do games like Spin the Bottle, or Seven Minutes in Heaven actually happen? If so, I want my money back. Maybe this is what I get for being way more into movies, TV, and drawing than I ever was in parties, or people. Stupid social awkwardness.

Meet Jude (Travis Tope), a high school kid just trying to deal with assignments that are building up, the loss of his father, a girlfriend that he thinks he is into. Oh, and somehow he falls into an alternate world when he plays Seven Minutes in Heaven with June (Haley Ramm), who is definitely not his girlfriend. Jude is having a really weird day, there are friends that are no longer friendly, a guidance counselor that’s sort of like the Terminator, but somehow cooler, and murder is afoot. The whole time, Jude’s real friends in his world are trying to work out just what happened, while simultaneously avoiding the cops. There is A LOT to unpack here.

The story is clever, it takes its cues from other tales like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Coherence, and Jacobs Ladder and then throws in some teen angst to create something fresh. It’s light, yet tense and puzzling. Ultimately, it offers no real explanation for what happens, but it could be argued it doesn’t need one. However, it would be fun to get an explanation of how the guidance counselor Mr. Wallace (Gary Cole) seemed to be the only person who understood exactly what was going on.

Travis Tope plays Jude, and though not necessarily bad, it seemed like nothing stuck to him. The activities of the night just washed off of him from scene to scene, as if the actor didn’t understand that at some point everything should start weighing on him. From beginning to end, the same person. Haley Ramm is June, your typical not-quite-the-bad-girl “bad girl”, or maybe just a little more angst than necessary. However, unlike her costar, she really seemed to evolve throughout the night’s events.

Gary Cole is in this to remind everyone what swagger looks like. Seriously, If I had a guidance counselor who strutted around as Gary Cole does…my life would probably be the same, but at least I’d know just how cool I’d never be. The last person worth mentioning is Dylan Everett as Kent, Jude’s best friend. Looking over his filmography, I can say I’ve only seen him one other place, but he needs to be in more projects. The kid knocked his part right out of the park. Kent is a believable friend, and his ability to switch gears throughout the movie was expertly done.

There isn’t a lot to be said for the production quality. Its very clear that they had a budget to work with, and that budget said “no” to things like special effects, practical effects, people above the age of 20. Yet they still managed to craft a unique film, its miniscule budget leaving room to create something more cerebral, more engaging. Writer/Director Chris Eigeman seems to have known what kind of story he was going to tell here, and exactly the limits of what he needed to tell it.

What I find the most interesting about Seven in Heaven is how I came to locate it. You see, I’m constantly looking for the announcements of what’s new week-to-week, so I can plan my time out. This movie wasn’t on that radar nor in press related materials we sift through, and it was released October 5th with well-advertised similar content on Netflix. So, why was this something that just kept popping up in my feed as a “You Might Also Like”? It’s Netflix, so I will likely never understand how they make their choices, but I will continue appreciating them for what they deliver.

Seven in Heaven isn’t one of Netflix’s grand slams out of the park, it is more like a received kickoff that runs to the 30-yard line. I don’t know sports but that sounds about right. Maybe more accurately,  I can say that my time with Seven In Heaven, unlike my high school experience, isn’t anything I’d be asking for my money back.