Starring: Domnhall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Lindsay Duncan.
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 123 mins. Reviewed in Oct 2013
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Best not to give up on this comedy because it gets better as it goes on – and on. It has been written and directed by Richard Curtis, best known for his writing of such comic events as Blackadder and Mr. Bean, as well as writing films like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill. He directed Love, Actually which was a hit. He directed The Boat that Rocks which drew no enthusiasm whatever from this reviewer! He is now back on track with romantic comedies.
The centre of the film is Domnhall Gleeson whom we first see at the age of 21, seemingly a born loser in personal relationships, a fiasco at a New Year’s Eve party and the expected kiss. However, his father calls him in for a talk and explains that the men in the family have a capacity for time travel. This is a limited gift, mainly and enabling the traveller to go back to a specific place and time and rectify a past mistake.
This, of course, provides some humour as Tim does a fair amount of correcting and improving the past. Especially true of his choice of best men at his wedding and dealing with their successive speeches until he gets the right one. Actually, for a lot of the film, Tim seems a real dill or, as another reviewer put it more politely, gormless. He leaves home in Cornwall, goes to work in a legal office, finds a room in the home of an acquaintance of his father, an extremely eccentric playwright, played with all stops out by Tom Hollander. Seemingly hopeless in love, he goes with his best friend to a restaurant where the meal is served in darkness, people having conversations without knowing what the others look like. When he gets out into the light, he sees Mary, played by Rachel McAdams.
It would be nice to say that Tim becomes less of a deal, falls in love with Mary and they live happily ever after. Without spoiling the end of the film, we know that actually they will be in love, marry and live happily ever after. But it is a difficult trek to get their as Tim keeps using his time travel to rectify situations which often mean that he changes his story so that he has to keep re-introducing himself to Mary.
As mentioned earlier, the film goes on and on, not just finishing with the nice romance and marriage but proceeding to show Tim and Mary and their married life, the bonds with Tim’s mother and father, Lindsay Duncan and Bill Nighy, his wayward sister getting her life in order, and the time when it will be necessary for Tim to give up his privilege. Throughout the film, Tim is very close to his father, but this theme is particularly strong in the latter part, Bill Nighy showing an unexpected warmth with his son. Which means, again, the message of the film is that we don’t need to rely on gimmicks to fix your life but to have confidence in yourself, rely on yourself, accept your responsibilities.
There are quite a number of Richard Curtis funny lines and eccentric situations, especially the fiasco of the wedding with so much rain beating down on the guests and the tent. And there is an eccentric old uncle who is charm itself but is not exactly with it and creates quite some humour with his offhand remarks and questions. Not a particularly memorable film, pleasant in its way, what the publicists call a ‘date movie’.
Fr Peter Malone msc
This is a British romantic, sci-fi comedy about time travel. That theme has cropped up in many movies (“Time Traveller’s Wife”, 2009, for example, with Rachel McAdams), and some of them have involved the same actors as well.
The story is intricate and complex. The main character in this film travels through time to change things in the past for what he thinks might be better for him and for others in the present – a common intent in almost all time-travel movies.
Tim Lake (Domhain Gleeson) and his father (Bill Nighy) come from a Cornish family that is able to travel through time, but certain rules apply. Tim is told by his father on his 21st. birthday (as he was) that only male members of the family have the skill, and the travel must be always backwards. The rules for appropriate travel make things awkward when they are broken. For example, travelling back in time when things are made a little different may cause a different child to be born and the original child to be lost.
The film plays loosely with time travel in different ways. But despite some plot inconsistencies and rule-breaking, the film’s core moral messages manage to find their mark.
Tim is not all that expert in matters of the heart and he falls in love with an insecure girl called Mary (Rachel McAdams), who he meets at a “dreaded New Year’s party”. Unable to meet Mary at a time she expects, for example, Tim uses time travel to try to re-arrange things, and, not surprisingly, problems result.
The chemistry between Tim and Mary is particularly good and Gleeson and McAdams are delightfully spontaneous together. Using his special skill, Tim does all he can to try to turn himself into an ideal partner and travels back in time regularly to correct or change unfortunate statements or messy situations that he has created in the past, or he knows has happened to others. His efforts are not entirely successful. What he does often creates difficulties for himself and those around him, and his happiness with Mary in the present is affected as a result.
This is a sweet, light romance movie that is directed whimsically by Richard Curtis. He uses time travel as a device to deliberately communicate the film’s main messages and to raise its smiles and laughs. The movie actually weds its sub-plots together by means of the device. For example, time travel is used by Tim to deepen his attachment to Mary, but Tim also uses it to explore a son’s relationship with a dying father. Tim’s father develops cancer and Tim goes back in time (at his father’s request) to share again moments of affection he had with his father in the past. As the film develops, meaningful emotional attachment emerges as the overarching theme that integrates the whole movie, and Richard Curtis explores the dimensions of emotional attachment in interesting and original ways.
This is a movie that is well-made and well-directed, and it has good acting to push its core messages home which are very positive. The film charms the viewer into accepting its basic argument: despite what might have been mistakes in the past, meaningful commitment, love and happiness depend on what exists now, and it is the present which needs to be enjoyed and nurtured for the right attachments and relationships to be able to continue. “All the time travel in the world”, the movie tells us, “can’t make someone love you”.
Peter W. Sheehan is associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting.
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