About Time is the new movie from writer/director Richard Curtis, whose work has been wildly successful, gaining him much praise over the last few decades. His previous films include Four Wedding and a Funeral, Love Actually, and Notting Hill. He knows how to make a hit romantic comedy. For his new movie, he tries something a bit different. By mixing a standard romantic comedy with the added new element of science fiction and time travel.At age 21, Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) is told by his father (Bill Nighy), that all the men in his family have always had the ability to travel through time. Tim can’t change history, but he can change what happens and has happened in his own life. He travels to London where he meets Mary (Rachel McAdams) and falls in love. He soon learns the good and the bad about time traveling by trying to have his cake and eat it too.
The movie is really good at lulling you into a sense of safe clichés for a romantic comedy, but when you least expect it, the story changes and takes some dramatic departures. This is what makes the movie so different and stands apart from so many clones of the same type of story as far as boy-meets-girl plots go. That’s when Curtis is at his best. He has managed to craft believable characters and make everything seem rather normal. All the characters are relatable and wonderful. Never once did you call them out on their “movie BS”. Aside from the added time travel, this was just another well-written “rom-com” by a man who has mastered the genre.
In most movies, time travel always has to be explained, and in most cases that’s when the time travel fails. Filmmakers feel the need to make it so plausible that the plot can get muddy with the hows and whys that you forget what the movie was about. But like in great time travel movies, there wasn’t much needed as far as explanations here. Just like in Back to the Future where Doc Brown simply points at the “flux capacitor” and says “this is what makes time travel possible”, you have been given all the information you need. It’s simply a fact that the men in the family can do this one amazing thing. They show us how, and we are expected to move on. The movie isn’t about the time travel, it’s about what amazing things Tim can use it for.
The cast brings the warmth and charm that you would expect from great actors who have been doing amazing work for years. Relative newcomer Domhnall Gleeson falls into place surrounded by seasoned veterans as if he has always been there. Tim is a shy, normal everyday guy who just wants to work, find love, and have a family. The newly added ability of time travel tends to make things slightly easier when he needs it to. If he tripped, messed up at work as he does a lot, or says the wrong thing, he can now go back and fix those little issues just to make his day easier.
The relationship between him and Mary (Rachel McAdams) starts off odd, but that just adds to the comedy of Tim’s life. Mary is a ditzy yet loveable expat American who Tim falls madly in love with, at first sight more or less. But because of a time-travel incident he keeps meeting her for the first time again and again until he finally gets it right and wins her heart. He continues to use the ability to have the perfect proposal, save the wedding from terrible best-man speeches, and save his best friend from professional disaster. After a few mistakes here and there, Tim uses his power wisely to make him and Mary have the best life they can have together.
Even though Tim and Mary’s relationship is the centerpiece of the movie, there is another very important relationship in the movie that people will find just as wonderful to watch. The relationship between Tim and his father is equally as important to the film as Mary’s is.
Played brilliantly by Bill Nighy, Tim’s father is just a wonderful man and character. He brings a stern realness and love that certain actors just can’t do. As much as the movie is about Tim and Mary, it’s also a story about fathers and sons. Which is an element that men and woman can enjoy when watching this.
At first glance, this was a movie I didn’t really want to see, but after watching it, I was so wrong. This is a beautiful movie with great acting, wonderful convincing characters, and a story that will warm and break your heart. It does have its “rom-com” clichés that are sometime hard to swallow, but the movie makes up for it in its creativeness of flipping the genre on its side. This is definitely a good watch that everyone should enjoy.