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Sometimes optimism can be dystopian.Hello Tomorrow is set in a retrofuturisticalternate universe where Jack Billings (Billy Crudup) is trying to sell timeshares on the moon. His traveling salesmen go door to door to lure customers in with a fictional rocket launch. When Myrtle Mayburn (Alison Pill) burns all her bridges for a chance to live on the moon, she becomes intent on destroying Jack when he doesn’t fulfill his promises.

Space migration, robot servers, and black-and-white TVs. Watching classic 1950s cars float down the streets and Rosie from The Jetsons-esque servers at diners is almost nostalgic — a picture-perfect realization of the future the early 1900s would’ve envisioned. Perhaps that’s why despite having mastered space travel and jetpacks, color television and WiFi don’t exist. That’s just not what people saw when they saw the future.

There’s no explanation of where exactly our histories diverge. No wars averted, no assassinations prevented. In fact, it seems like nothing particularly bad has ever happened on their Earth. The world is a childlike fantasy, and that may be why Jack and Co’s duplicitousness seems especially offensive.

Hello Tomorrow may lack momentum at certain points, but the deep relatability of people grabbing onto any reason to hope for a better life makes it difficult to look away. It’s not just the naïve customers buying fictional trips to the moon, it’s Jack wanting to reunite his family and Eddie (Hank Azaria) recklessly gambling in hopes of a big payout. It seems that everyone has fallen for the elusive dream of a better future.

WHERE TO WATCH- Hello Tomorrow is streaming on AppleTV+.

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