Mason is an unhap­py mid­dle-school stu­dent liv­ing in New York City in 2023. When his ther­a­pist, Barb, sug­gests that he com­pose a let­ter to any­one of his choice, with­out hav­ing to send it, he is skep­ti­cal that this exer­cise will improve his mood. When he does decide on Albert Ein­stein as the recip­i­ent of the note, he lat­er has sec­ond thoughts. But the let­ter, tossed in his clos­et, has dis­ap­peared. Giv­en Einstein’s research into worm­holes in space-time, it makes sense when a girl named Talia receives it instead of the renowned sci­en­tist. She lives in Penn­syl­va­nia, in 1987. Also strug­gling with per­son­al issues, as well as bla­tant anti­semitism, Talia is soon exchang­ing mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions with some­one who uses strange­ly for­eign terms, like ​“google,” and men­tions lis­ten­ing to music on his phone. An epis­to­lary friend­ship devel­ops that allows both Mason and Talia to tran­scend lim­its of time and space, and to fig­ure out some prob­lems that each of them confronts. 

The adults in Mason and Talia’s lives are large­ly well-inten­tioned, but their efforts to offer sup­port are often inad­e­quate. Mason’s absent father is hop­ing to build his career, but mean­while, his absence has left a painful gap in his family’s life. Mason’s moth­er has an exhaust­ing work sched­ule, and her appar­ent reliance on alco­hol is fright­en­ing to him. Talia’s more typ­i­cal prob­lem of a best friend’s aban­don­ment elic­its the obtuse remark from her father that ​“some­times dif­fer­ences are what make a friend­ship spe­cial.” Worse, when Talia reports per­sis­tent anti­se­mit­ic bul­ly­ing at school, her par­ents seem ill-equipped to deal with the real­i­ty, assum­ing that dis­cussing the prob­lem with the admin­is­tra­tion will bring a quick res­o­lu­tion. Mack­ler does not min­i­mize the hatred moti­vat­ing some of Talia’s school­mates, pre­sent­ing it as psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly men­ac­ing. Her teacher and prin­ci­pal are cal­lous­ly indif­fer­ent, at best, send­ing the mes­sage that they are not only unable to help, but may actu­al­ly share the prej­u­dices of their students. 

Giv­en the lim­i­ta­tions of their respec­tive fam­i­lies, the strong con­nec­tion between Mason and Talia devel­ops and strength­ens. Using time trav­el as a nar­ra­tive device holds risks; the mech­a­nism can eas­i­ly become a pre­text for sim­plis­tic fantasy.But in Right Back At You, the dif­fer­ences between the pro­tag­o­nists’ times and loca­tions pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for enlight­en­ing con­trasts. In addi­tion to anti­semitism, Talia is sub­ject­ed to sex­ism, espe­cial­ly in her deter­mi­na­tion to excel at sports. Her school’s coach embod­ies atti­tudes that cer­tain­ly con­tin­ue in 2023, but are no longer viewed as the norm. Mason is tak­en aback by her expe­ri­ence, which seems almost as antique as the Walk­man that her broth­er refus­es to share. The friends also grap­ple with the moral impli­ca­tions of time trav­el if they were to use knowl­edge of future events to affect outcomes. 

Ado­les­cence is dif­fi­cult enough with­out a mis­di­rect­ed let­ter to Albert Ein­stein forc­ing two lone­ly kids to tran­scend time and space. How­ev­er, this acci­dent becomes an oppor­tu­ni­ty as the two help one anoth­er to move for­ward toward their respec­tive futures.