In this maladroit, earnest London-set melodrama, former British soldier Tesla (Sebastian Street) comes home from Afghanistan with paralysed legs, a bad case of PTSD, and a broken heart, having been dumped by his girlfriend while he was on tour. But things start looking up for him after he befriends well-connected but workshy bon viveur Sky (Stuart Brennan) – whom we’re guided to think of as really erudite because he immediately connects the name Tesla to the Serbian electrical pioneer, not to the electric car company.
Eventually, the two blokes start double dating flatmates Katie (Stephanie Leonidas), a business studies student who wants start a restaurant and put her new squeeze Tesla in the kitchen, and Lee-Anne (Sophie Kennedy Clark), an aspiring artist producing woefully pedestrian sketches and photos.
Written by co-stars Street and Brennan (who also produced), Tomorrow is largely uninterested in the feelings and motivations of its women: they are merely catalysts for the dramas centred on the guys. In Tesla’s case, it all has to do with his trauma and the challenges he faces in being taken seriously as a chef, a worthy enough storyline that also presents his sex life with Katie as relatively uncomplicated and satisfying. Meanwhile, Sky has a dark secret that makes him mysteriously jumpy about intimacy but which his girlfriend and father (James Cosmo) are absurdly slow to work out.
Near the end, Stephen Fry toddles into the story to provide public-service-style advice. Indeed, the movie plays in part like a kind of state-funded docudrama, boosting body positivity and healthy-living tips for the differently abled and those with less visible conditions.
It’s a nice message, but Martha Pinson’s direction is bland and functional, and, even though they wrote the dialogue, the male leads struggle to deliver the lines with much conviction, making this a bit like a vanity project that’s not even that flattering.
• Tomorrow is released in the UK on 27 September.
