There are probably a small percentage of crotchety hyper-critical, too clever people who might even hate
About Time – if you are one of them, I suggest you mend your ways – for honestly, only the meanest of the mean spirited could dislike this charming English film that deals with all of the very stuff of life with humour, grace, compassion, and a healthy dose of fantasy – without which none of us could really function.
About Time as the name cleverly suggests, is about a rather preposterous family where only the men can travel (and that too only backwards) in time. When the great Bill Nighy, who plays James Lake the time travelling patriarch, explains this for the first time to his understandably bewildered and disbelieving son Tim (the charming Domhnall Gleeson), the younger Lake immediately checks this by getting into a dark closet, clenching his fists, and thinking of the time to which he wants to go. One of the first things he says is that he hopes it will help him get a girlfriend.
And so we continue in this hyper engaging world written by Richard Curtis from whose imagination have come gems like Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), the slightly sickening, but also terribly enjoyable Love Actually (2003), and now About Time which is Curtis’ third time as writer and director.
As with most cinema, one must suspend disbelief, but with all the time travelling in this film, I beg of you now, suspend your logical brain a little bit more – it will help you to enjoy the film better and you will be glad for it.
As the loveably kind-hearted Tim fumbles around trying to woo the woman he loves, the always adorable and winsome Rachel McAdams as Mary, he does run into more than a few fixes. I will not say the film’s plot is cookie-cutter exactly, but it is just a bit predictable. What saves and elevates this film from others in its genre is the very good, perfectly delivered dialogue by the consummate cast which includes thespians such as Lindsay Duncan, Tom Hollander, and Richard E Grant (to name but a few), the lovely settings in Cornwall, and a very warm seeming London.
The film is beautifully shot by John Guleserian, a cinematographer I am unfamiliar with, but whose progress I will watch now like a hawk, for his sensibility in bringing to life the best of the English seaside and country is clearly flawless.
In this season leading up to the awarding of ‘serious’ cinema, it is hard to recommend even a slightly lighter film, especially if it is a romantic comedy about time travel. But trust me this film has its heart in the right place, it will make your heart sore, but it might also bleed – just a little with its oh so perfect end.
Watch trailer: