I felt manipulated...

Rating: 6/10 (31 May 2015)

This isn't the first occasion I've seen About Time, indeed I caught it back at the cinema and was won over by it, its sweet charm and English whimsy.
But this time... I don't know, came away feeling like I'd been manipulated emotionally by it. I was ready to be enchanted all over again by a feel good movie, but instead I found myself not liking the main character, Tim, very much at all, compensating for his life mistakes by erasing them and having another go. No one gets this. We all mess up from time to time, and it's the learning from those moments that defines us. But not Tim. He just gets to do it all over again, right this time, or perhaps not as his wooing of Rachel McAdam's character came across as more than a little creepy. I get that we're supposed to think it's okay, essentially innocent, his quoting back lines to her about Kate Moss in an attempt to worm his way into her affections. Oh look, it's that nice, slightly awkward yet wholesome English lad; isn't that lovely? Well no, not really, and I found myself remembering Elijah Wood using bits of Kate Winslet's stolen memories in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as a less honourable attempt at courtship (which, appropriately, she sees right through).
If you don't buy into all that, which I didn't on this occasion, then the rest comes crashing down. The supporting characters are nearly all so one-dimensional that you can sum them up in a single word - sister Kit Kat (scatty), Rory (embarrassing), Harry (rude), etc. Again, nobody in reality is like this, but that level of complexity doesn't fit in with the film so the characters are defined by their single-word stereotypes.
I still have feeling for it, though, entirely because of the Bill Nighy character, Tim's dad. As with the rest of About Time, father's aren't as perfect as he is (I know; I am one), but the sweet natured relationship between Tim and his dad (he's even credited on the cast list as 'Dad') just about saves it. Still a pleasant surprise to have this element in the film, and it gets to me every time.