As far as I’m concerned, Richard Curtis is three-for-three. In the realm of pleasant, any day watches he has a knack for the appealing. Love Actually is a personal favorite and easily Curtis’ best; Pirate Radio is a bit rough around the edges, but still an enjoyable watch; and now About Time is sweet, solemn, funny, romantic and just an overall good movie. Just don’t try and get caught up in the time travel mechanics, I’m still not sure I have it entirely figured out.
To that time travel part of the story, Curtis tackles it head on and very matter of factly. Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson) is told at the age of 21 by his father (Bill Nighy) that he can travel in time. No bullshitting around, go upstairs in the closet, focus on a moment in time, poof you’re there. He reluctantly gives it a shot, it works, it’s part of the story, just accept it.
Considering she’s drawn to not only romance stories (The Notebook, The Vow) and romance stories with time travel aspects to them (The Time Traveler’s Wife), Rachel McAdams is the obvious choice for the female lead. Here she plays Mary, who is eventually introduced into Tim’s life and, surprisingly, the film is less about Tim using his ability to get Mary to love him and more about him using it to find an appreciation for love and life itself, and accept any ugliness that may come with it. This is why About Time works.
So often films like this are hellbent on teaching a broken character a lesson. Problem is, Tim isn’t broken. He’s a good guy that has found love without the use of his “power”, though his ability does cause him to lose it, and find it, and lose it, and find it again.
Yet, it’s less about exploiting a power for personal gain (though that does happen) and more about holding on to positive memories from the past, making the most of every day and using the bad to find some good. It’s as much about love for a significant other as it is for family and, in an interesting twist considering this genre, it plays heavy on the father-son relationship.
The casting of Gleeson and McAdams opposite one other felt odd most of the time, but that’s only because Gleeson isn’t your typical leading man, but, as you’ve hopefully already figured out, this isn’t your typical romantic comedy. Certainly it deals with many of the similar beats, but instead of your characteristic misunderstandings that would cause most cinematic relationships to crumble before being built back up, the focus here is more toward the out-of-the-blue moments in life that blindside us and how much we wish we could go back to repair the damage before it was ever done, only to learn if it wasn’t one thing that would hurt us it would be another. The inevitability of life is… inevitable, deal with it the best you can.
As I said at the outset, however, don’t look too close at the mechanics of the time travel. There are a few rules inserted into the story so as to ensure certain story elements must take place and can’t be altered, which is a good thing or the audience would get too caught up in thoughts of “Why doesn’t he just ________” when that isn’t the point of the story.
About Time could prove to be a very interesting theatrical experience for the guys that take their significant others to go see it. So often these are films hellbent on getting the weepy ones in the audience to well up over the sentimental portions of the story (and they certainly will), but this is one film that may even get the non-criers in the audience, that would typically roll their eyes at such a thought, to shed a tear. I didn’t, because I’m all man and way too tough for that, but you might.
