About Time (2013) film review.
The protagonist in About Time, the latest syrup-lacquered rom-com from Love Actually and Bridget Jones’ Diary writer/director Richard Curtis, discovers at age 21 that if he retreats to a quiet place and clenches his fists, he can zap himself back to the past and relive any moment of his life.
Father and mentor Bill Nighy advises him not to go crazy. Keep your goals modest, he says, correctly inferring the story about to unfold will not be the stuff of Sports Alamanacs and DeLoreans (Back to the Future) or tricked-up phone booths (Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure).
But boy, Tim Lake’s (Domhnall Gleeson) goals really are modest. He just wants a girl friend. And thus is prepared to tolerate (even with the limitless gifts afforded to him) a mundane day job so he can come home and snuggle up to the gal of his dreams. That gal is Mary (Rachel McAdams) who falls for him, but in a sense (for the aforementioned reasons) she never really had a choice. Is Tim being selfish or selfless?
There are several interesting moral and logical questions posed in About Time. Curtis is prepared to answer precisely none of them, for two reasons: he doesn’t care for that whole science fiction thing and won’t tolerate painting his protagonist in a negative light – even temporarily.
Like Tim’s aspirations, About Time is modest. Curtis has made a fluffy middle of the road rom-com. His attitude seems to be that if viewers are lured in by a time travel twist, so much the better. That twist provides an enjoyable quasi-intellectual exercise, provided you don’t think about it much. There is a smattering of “whoops, rewind that!” jokes that work, and give the film some kind of edge – albeit an edge Curtis seems entirely uninterested in taking further.
Whether this is a virtue or a vice largely depends largely on your expectations. As a ‘leave your brain at the door’ rom-com, About Time is a reasonable success for unfussy audiences. It’s good-natured and thoughtfully constructed, albeit with a flabby middle act and a cheesy finish.
As a time travel movie it doesn’t offer anything remotely innovative. When it looks like it might, Curtis quickly aborts mission.