Can you believe it is Tuesday night yet again? It's about time we settled down to watch a film. Tonight's film, that we are settling down to watch, is;
About Time
It gets harder and harder to come up with new ways of expressing your thoughts about a film and this week is no different, but we'll try to swap it around a bit, as we describe About Time. Let's start with the brilliant cast and the characters they play, before running through the synopsis.
Heading up the cast are Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams playing Tim and Mary respectively. Gleeson is probably most famous for playing Bill Weasley in a couple of the Harry Potter films, whereas the very cute Rachel McAdams has been in many more well known films, such as; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, The Vow, Mean Girls, The Notebook and ironically The Time Traveler's Wife. Alongside these two we have the quintessentially English gentleman Bill Nighy, paired with an equally English and brilliant character actress; Lindsay Duncan, who play Tim's parents. At the next level of supporting characters, we have roles for Tom Hollander, Richard Cordery and Lydia Wilson who play relatives to Tim.
The film is from the pen, and under the direction of Richard Curtis and from the very first moment of the film you can tell this. The opening scenes, with a narration from Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) could as easily have been read by Hugh Grant. The tone of voice, the rhythm and the style of the opening monologue is pure Curtis. In fact the whole film bears all the hallmarks of a Richard Curtis movie; the eccentricities and Englishness of the characters, the style of dialogue, the gratuitous expletives and the humour. And all of this is not a bad thing. Curtis has produced some fantastic, modern classic films; Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually, Notting Hill, so he has form as a writer and director.
And so to the story. It has to be said, that Curtis has taken the romantic comedy on a different route with About Time, all his other films seemed to be rooted in reality, About Time shies away from reality and adds an air of fantasy, for you see, when Tim reaches the age of 21, his father tells him the family secret; all the male members of the family can travel in time!
Just take a moment to absorb that information and then think, how on earth can you take such a notion and ensure you still have a viable romantic comedy at the end? Well, think Love Actually and Groundhog Day and you'll be getting close. To be fair it is a lot more than that, once you get over the fantastical premise of time travel, About Time becomes a lovely romantic comedy that will keep you entertained for the full 123 minutes.
Back to the story for a moment, so Tim can, within limits, travel back in time and after a moment of disbelief he indeed can travel back in time and be able to relive a moment and change the course of history, or veer the path to the future. Obviously, his first couple of attempts proves that although he can change things for the better, sometimes the consequences are not quite as he imagined. And so we have a jolly time in the first third of the film, as he bounces around time, trying to get himself a girlfriend. Once he finds that girl (Mary) he has to keep her and on several occasions, whilst helping others, he ends up changing his own future and losing Mary. You have to watch it to keep up with that part of the story.
The path of true love never runs smooth and it was inevitable that at some point halfway through the film, if the formula to this Curtis film were to be the same, that something would happen to Tim and Mary that would require some real thinking and soul searching. Therefore, it was quite refreshing that the formulaic "there's trouble" point in the film turned out not to be between Tim and Mary, but Tim and his family, first his sister and then his father. It was nice to actually see the main couple stay a couple and for Tim to use his secret to help his family. Far too often in rom-com's and chick-flicks it is the main characters who fall apart and you have to wait for the feelgood finale to bring them back together. This was different, this was better.
Again not wishing to spoil the plot, that is where we will leave the story, you will have to watch it yourself to fill in all the gaps. Needless to say, About Time was a lovely film, with a tremendous cast and a beautiful story. As long as you are happy to suspend (more than normal) belief for a couple of hours and allow yourself to be transported on a delightful time travelling journey, you can enjoy the wonders of a quintessentially English lifestyle with an attached love story, with the typical humour of Richard Curtis. Whether it rates as good as Love Actually, is another story, but About Time is well written, well executed story, touching, funny, loving, warm and wholesome, with a modicum of stretching the space-time continuum.
As for the TNiFN ratings, it went down very well, being enjoyed by all members of the panel. A thumbs up from us.
TNiFN Rating 84%
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