Oscar winner John Ridley discusses sci-fi and romance in ‘Needle in a Timestack’

Finding true love is like finding a needle in a haystack, or in this case, a “timestack.”

John Ridley’s sci-fi movie “Needle in a Timestack,” based on Robert Silverberg’s 1983 short story of the same name, plays with the time travel theme mixed with romance.

In a world that enables the obscenely wealthy to travel through time, Leslie Odom Jr.’s Nick spends one timeline trying to hold onto his marriage to Janine (Cynthia Erivo), another trying to win her back from ex-husband Tommy (Orlando Bloom), and another exploring his failed relationship with Alex (Freida Pinto).

“In all of these iterations of these possibilities of relationships ... they’re good relationships, but they have fraught moments. And they have moments where they have to look at each other and go, ‘Well, is this really working?’” Ridley, 57, told the Daily News.

“And that was important to me as well to do a very mature love story that happens to feature BIPOC individuals,” he added, using the acronym for Black, Indigenous, People of Color.

“I’m a romantic at heart. We live in a world and [have] relationships that can last a minute and be wonderful. They can last 20 years. And it’s just people who never really look at each other and go, ‘This isn’t working,’” said Ridley, who penned the Oscar-winning script for Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave.”

Assuming that “there is somebody out there for each of us,” the film asks several questions about the nature of true love and missed opportunities.

“What if someone else found that person? Is there only one person? ... If you could go back in time, and erase every single mistake, what would you end up with your life?” said Ridley.

“We’d love to go back and do something a little bit differently. But it’s in those moments of regret that we grow as people and hopefully apply them in the now.”

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