About Time: A Review

The latest offering from Britain's king of romantic comedies Richard Curtis, About Time is a two hour lesson on how to achieve 'the good life' and that ever elusive 'happiness'. Oh, and time travel. The basic premise is that if you don't get this 'life' business right the first time, just go back and do it again, only better. But then don't, because you've learned that it's better to do it right the first time. Or something like that.

 

Lesson #1: Smell the roses because, actually, there is no time travel, there are no do-overs, and you only have one chance to get it right.

About Time is not what you'd expect from the poster. Yes, it is a romantic comedy, but the love is about family and not about boy meets girl, romantic love. Fundamentally, this is the story of a young man and his relationships, in particular that with his father.

At 21, Tim's (Domhnall Gleeson) dad, played by the ever charming Bill Nighy, informs him that the men in the family have always had the ability to travel back in time. Of course this immediately leads Tim to time warp back to a New Year's party to kiss a girl. Tim goes on to use his new found abilities to search for love, finding disappointment instead, before he ups and moves to London. There, after a time, he uses it to help a friend, which consequently leads him to never had met the love of his life (Rachel McAdams). Fear not, as the situation is soon rectified and Tim continues to jump through time in the pursuit of happiness.

Lesson #2: Time travel doesn’t always get you what you want, and it can’t make someone love you.

Curtis, who brought us Love Actually, Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral (they're all listed on the poster, in case you were confused), brings us yet another utterly smug, not entirely unlikable, but very middle class morality tale. However, this time there's a bit of timey-wimey travel thrown in for good measure. To be honest I'm not sure why, on the time travel. There are apparently no consequences from all the jumping back and forth, except maybe for one quite major issue that is somehow overcome even in defiance of the logic presented - I won't spoil it, but it has something to do with a very particular sperm and an equally particular egg.

Lesson #3: Children are happiness, so have three.

Honestly, if not having children is a sore point for you, this film will either make you weep uncontrollably into a tub of ice-cream or throw heavy blunt objects at the screen.

I had hoped that the unintended consequence of this supernatural familial trait was the apparent madness that besets both Tim's uncle Desmond (Richard Cordery) and sister Kit Kat (Lydia Wilson). That would have brought some conflict and drama to the story, but no. And this is what is missing from About Time - the story. There doesn't really appear to be one. It's an observation of a life, but there is limited conflict, and where it does crop up it is relatively simply dismissed. Yes, there is death, yes, there is general life chaos, yes, there are issues of mental health, but each of these is passed over as we witness from the perspective of a young lad chasing his own happiness, at his own will, across time.

The performances are fine, nothing outstanding, although I am beginning to lose patience with McAdams' seemingly eternal portrayal of 'love interest', or more specifically 'love interest in a romance with some element of time travel'. In About Time she is convinced she's altogether ordinary - courtesy of a slightly unflattering (read, alternative) haircut - making those of us who are actually ordinary feel utterly useless. Gleeson is charming and so easily middle class English, which is an achievement being the son of the quintessentially Irish Brendan Gleeson. Bill Nighy plays a variation from the spectrum of Bill Nighy, but I'm okay with that.

I think the best summation of About Time lies with The Guardian, which called it 'Groundhog Day with a ginger Hugh Grant'. Apt.

As an aside, a massive part of me wishes that Curtis could bring back the brilliance that was Not the Nine O'Clock News and Blackadder. What is evidently missing from our movie screens is that expression of self-deprecation and satire that pokes fun at the absurd reality that surrounds us. It seems we're altogether too serious now, or too boring, or our concept of cinematic humour is tied up in bodily functions. Shame.

About Time is in cinemas from 17 October.

-Stevie O'C