- A genius teenage boy is in love with a girl who breaks up with him after a year. He invents a time machine and tries to fix the breakup repeatedly. He finally goes a year back with his friend to fix the bad days.
- Physics prodigy Stillman (Butterfield) is destined for great things, only to be derailed when his girlfriend, Debbie (Turner) suddenly dumps him. But Stillman isn't beaten, he does what any heartbroken genius would do - he invents a time machine to get a second chance at love.
- Stillman met Debbie 6 months ago at a bar, whom he frequented with his friend Evan (Skyler Gisondo). Debbie works as a waitress at the bar and is terrible at remembering orders. Evan encourages Stillman to talk to Debbie. Debbie is an aspiring musician but does not have a plan on how to build her career. In fact, she hasn't thought about her future at all, and lives in the present. She is studying as well, but not in any structured way. The year before she went to Hawaii, for no specific purpose other than to be in Hawaii. Stillman is smitten with her and knows that they are meant for each other.
Physics prodigy Stillman (Asa Butterfield) is destined for great things, only to be derailed when his girlfriend, Debbie (Sophie Turner) suddenly dumps him. Stillman is speechless and cannot say anything to convince Debbie not to break up with him. Stillman maps out his entire dating history with Debbie on an interactive map to try and figure out where he went wrong with Debbie. Stillman decodes every instance where he didn't feel that the moment went perfectly with Debbie but doesn't get anywhere. He has cataloged his entire history with Debbie and marked the happy moments with smiley faces, and the unhappy moments with red faces.
But Stillman isn't beaten, he does what any heartbroken genius would do - he invents a time machine to get a second chance at love. Stillman knows that he will never find anyone better than Debbie and he needs to fix his relationship with her. The time machine puts the present consciousness into the same body inhabited by the past consciousness. Stillman travels with Evan to each of the instances where things went wrong with Debbie. The time machine is controlled by an application on Stillman's smart phone.
Stillman travels to the moment when Debbie actually breaks up with him. But no matter what he says, or how he approaches the situation, acceptance, denial, reverse psychology, acting cool, and others, the outcome is still the same. Debbie breaks up with Stillman.
He remembers the time when Debbie wrote him a song (after he said "I Love You" to her), and Stillman wondered which character he played in the song. Stillman wanted Debbie to reciprocate his feelings, instead she wrote a confusing song.
Stillman starts by going to the time when he first met Debbie. From that point on, Stillman can relive that moment any number of times, but they move from one incident to the next time-wise, towards the present time.
For e.g., to the moment when Stillman shared his favorite movie (Farallon Five) with Debbie, and she made fun of it with her friends (Carly and Ryan). Stillman reacts angrily and ends up making a gay joke that offends one of Debbie's friends Ryan. No matter how hard Stillman tries, the outcome is still that he is angry, and Debbie is offended. eventually Stillman figures out that saying nothing is the best strategy.
Next, they travel to the time when Debbie and Stillman got stuck on a roof, and Debbie had a fear of being trapped. Stillman uses his skills with a pocketknife to open the lock, and Debbie gets very excited and kisses Stillman. Stillman replays that moment again and again.
Evan reminds Stillman to stick to the mission and they move forward to the day of the song. However, in the middle of the mission, the app that controls the time machine develops a bug. At first only the relive functionality has a bug. Eventually the bug sorts itself out. But a few jumps later, the app freezes completely, and locks Stillman out. Due to the freeze reliving the moment is no longer possible, and they can only move forward in time. So, Stillman and Evan have no option but to continue living in that time-line (as Stillman says that he still hasn't fixed the issue with Debbie) and Stillman has only one shot to fix every situation.
During one late night talk, Stillman opens up about how he thinks Debbie's friend Ryan (Will Peltz) is trying to hook up with her. Debbie defends Ryan by saying that he is gay. Debbie sings at a bar and receives an offer to play regularly. In the original instance Stillman offered his advise, and probably ended up in a fight. This time he remains silent as Debbie contemplates all her options and makes up her mind.
Meanwhile Evan starts changing things about himself as well (he relives the moment to win a Frisbee tournament against his arch-rival Andy), and as the duo move forward in time, they reach new events which were created by the changes they made in the past. Evan believes that he has started dating the Blue Ribbons girl, whom he crushed on forever, but never did anything about it. But turns out he was only helping her move her furniture.
Stillman attends a Ryan's weekend gay night party, at which the last time he screamed at Debbie for dancing too close to Ryan. But this time, he manages to keep quiet and finds that Debbie eventually comes and dances with him. They end up spending the night together and the next morning Stillman sees that in the future Debbie has not broken up with him.
Stillman goes forward to the present and indeed he is still boyfriends with Debbie. That night he has sex with Debbie. But eventually new events happen, and Stillman manages to mess those up. He ends up yelling at Debbie for being late for dinner on his birthday by an hour. Stillman builds the time machine again in anticipation of Debbie breaking up with him. 2 years later, Debbie and Stillman are still together. Now his life is just constantly having fights with Debbie over little things and then going back in time to fix them. Debbie finds it strange that they never fight. Both are feeling unhappy in their marriage. Stilman sees Evan about being addicted to using the machine and that it was making their life too perfect and making Debbie unhappy.
Debbie suggests having a baby to be happy again. In the morning, he gives Debbie a kiss and then Evan comes and asks him not to destroy the time machine. Evan reveals he uses it often and Stilman locks him out of the house, but Debbie lets him in again. They both fight each other, and Debbie becomes upset when she finds the time machine. Stilman explains what he is going to do, and Evan jumps in. They go back to the first day Debbie and Stilman met, and Evan chases him with his car to ensure he comes up with the theorem for the time machine. Stilman reveals they cannot go back as his phone is not hooked up. Stilman kisses Debbie and then begins to leave her. Her consciousness from the future comes back and they begin to argue but eventually make up.
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