Hey everyone, Hope you are all safe and well! I am on the hunt for a story (book / film / tv) recommendation that is told across two POV's that are within different timelines/decades. For example a POV told from a man in the present which then flips to a POV told by his grandmother in the past, and switches throughout the story. The two stories are separate but will draw parallels or link up in some way. It can be any genre but in particular I'm interested in contemporary stories that work this way. Please let me know. Thanks!
There's a movie called Frequency with Jim Caviezel and Dennis Quaid (who plays his dad) that fits the bill perfectly. As I recall his father died when he was very young as a firefighter, and now I think Caviezel is a homicide detective. There's a radio, I think it was his dad's ham radio, and it connects them across time so they can speak to each other. It's along the lines of a Hallmark movie, kind of sappy, but it was touching and pretty well done.
And of course you've got the whole Back to the Future franchise, which is more or less built on the idea you're talking about, though his parents' lives are only shown while he's visiting them. I don't remember it all that well, but I think in Frequency it spends some time in each timeline.
There are also stories/movies where someone is repeating what an ancestor or someone else did in the past. Often the other person is a ghost and sometimes they end up meeting or something. I think Lady Chatterley's Lover was built on that premise. I'm sure there are many more but I'm not coming up with any just now.
Thanks! I am thinking more of a story with two completely separate timelines - not ones that meet or cross via time travel or similar. It could be as simple as a girl in the present who finds the diary of her late dad and then the POV switches to tell his story. Then back to tell hers, and so forth. I just can't think!
Yes - this is more on the lines on what I am thinking! Where the two characters have a lot of parallels in their own timelines.
I haven't seen it and I'm not sure, but isn't The Time Traveler's Wife based on that kind of scenario too? Oops—I wrote this before your last post came up.
Another one that at least features a plotline like what your're looking for (not the main plot) is High Spirits with Steve Martin and Darryl Hannah. I barely remember it, but I *think* Darryl Hannah plays a modern woman who becomes possessed by the ghost of an ancient woman who died tragically in the castle where they're staying. But I'm not entirely sure.
Had it slightly wrong. Steve Martin isn't in it, it's Steve Guttenberg, and the modern woman is played by Beverly DeAngelo, while Darryl Hannah plays the ancient ghost. And now I'm not sure if DeAngelo is possessed by her or if they just keep seeing her and her ghost-lover walking the corridors. So this one's just a 'maybe'.
Jimmy Corrigan - The Smartest Kid on Earth (comic book, 2000) flips between 2 timelines in a single family and iirc by the ending it eventually ups this to 4 generations
One of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan books (I think it was one written after Clancy's death) told the story from the POV of Ryan and his son, alternating chapters twenty years apart.
