Volition (2019) Characters, Setting & Themes Explained

Volition takes place in a contemporary urban setting. Key locations include Jimmy's modest apartment, an alleyway where pivotal interventions occur, Elliot's high-tech laboratory where time travel is discovered, gritty street locations that frame the criminal underworld, and a foster home that represents Jimmy's past.

• urban setting
• jimmy apartment
• alley
• eliots lab
• foster home

The story primarily takes place in present day but features a pivotal twist that sends Jimmy back to 1994. The narrative alternates between contemporary life and this past timeline, creating a nonlinear structure that explores how time travel reshapes choices and consequences.

• present day
• 1994
• time period
• timeline
• time travel

Time travel is the central conceit of Volition, achieved through a drug that allows Jimmy to move between present day and 1994. This creates a complicated web of cause and effect, testing the limits of free will and the cost of trying to rewrite what seems inevitable. The mechanism also reveals the fragility of memories and the persistence of past trauma.

• time travel
• drug
• timeline
• free will
• memory
• past trauma

Yes, fate versus free will is a core theme in Volition. Jimmy believes his future is predetermined, particularly his own death, yet the time jumps invite him to test that belief. His attempts to steer events, especially to save Angela, highlight the tension between destiny and choice, questioning whether one can truly alter a life path that seems already set.

• fate
• free will
• destiny
• choice
• predetermined future

A web of double-crosses drives the criminal plot centered on diamonds and trafficking. Characters like Sal, Ray, and Terry pursue their own interests, forcing Jimmy to navigate danger and suspicion. The consequences of betrayal ripple across timelines, affecting who lives and who dies, testing loyalty and pushing Jimmy toward difficult moral choices.

• crime
• betrayal
• diamonds
• trafficking
• double-cross
• loyalty

Jimmy is a reformed ex-criminal with clairvoyant abilities who uses his visions to make small bets and steer his life. Haunted by a vision of his mother's death in a car accident when he was young, he struggles with the notion that his future is pre-determined. His encounter with Angela and the diamond plot pulls him into a dangerous game of fate and choice.

• jimmy
• protagonist
• clairvoyant
• ex-criminal
• visions

Angela is a woman who flirts with Jimmy and shares a broken family past. She becomes entangled in the diamond plot and her tragic fate becomes the catalyst that drives Jimmy to confront the consequences of his gifts and the danger around him.

• angela
• magda apanowicz
• diamond plot
• love interest

Elliot is a quantum physicist and Jimmy's foster father who believes in the power of science to unlock time travel. He guides Jimmy's understanding of the time jumps and becomes central to Jimmy's attempt to save Angela across timelines, serving as both mentor and scientific architect of the time travel mechanism.

• elliot
• foster father
• quantum physicist
• time travel
• mentor

Jimmy's mother died in a car accident when he was young, and this loss shapes his worldview and his sense of mortality. Her absence fuels the emotional weight of the film and Jimmy's longing to alter the past, directly connecting to his belief that his future is pre-determined and his desperate attempts to change fate.

• jimmys mother
• car accident
• loss
• trauma
• childhood

Volition has a tense, fast-paced tone driven by suspense, pursuit, and the protagonist's anxiety about his unavoidable death. The emotional weight is heavy, dealing with themes of fatalism, loss, and the psychological toll of repeatedly witnessing one's own death. The complexity comes from the nonlinear timeline and multiple characters existing across different timelines.

• tone
• emotional weight
• tension
• suspense
• fatalism
• psychological