I'll go out with Matt Damon.

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2017)

You're either a fan of Richard Curtis, or you're not. There's not much space in between. Long time admirers have readily come to terms with the fact that his stories will never venture outside that safe, spotless and sanitised version of England, which is often coupled with the aggressively quaint middle class of Hugh Grant. Yet his films are not always as modest as they are on the surface, particularly when they claim to represent the entire country's longing near Christmas time. Now that I think about it, it's often the effortless, windswept debonair of Grant that prevents these films from being too scrutinised. Would we question that chiselled jaw the same way we question the gangly, awkward ginger of Gleeson? Tim finds an early and sweet connection with Mary on a blind (literally) double date at a restaurant, and feels as if he is entitled to that same connection after his time travelling erases it. Perhaps he is, but is it then morally right to pretend to be someone he is not? To act vastly more interested in her interests than he really is, to redo their first time in bed until they are lights out, to mouth off at the potential boyfriend that he beats to the chase (a mean-spirited, out of character comment)? Mary herself doesn't seem to have a lot of say in this relationship, and when he pushes Tim for a third child, it feels less like an actual desire of her character and more the screenplay tapping Tim on the shoulder and telling him that his time is up. In Lindsay Duncan's interrogations, her imperfections are cutesy labels that don't appear anywhere else, while he's erased all of his. It feels dishonest.
In response to these dilemmas Curtis might respond by showing the first example of Tim's experimentation with time travel, a simple and elegant demonstration of the power's limitations after a summer of attempting to woo Charlotte. That reasoning suggests that no matter how many different approaches Tim fashions she is bound to gently reject him, and so vice versa the same must apply to Mary: the initial spark is there, so their romance is merely a matter of time. This notion might have more weight to it if Curtis wasn't playing fast and loose with the logic of his brand of time travel. The power is lightly sprung onto a young Tim from his father with the nonchalance of buying a teenager a new car, and he only pops up periodically to shed new light on rules and regulations. The story is sweeter and more honest when the characters are the ones making the choices themselves; her slipping a little white lie into their conversation and getting him to walk her all the way home, and after the most casually adorable proposal ever, he doesn't rush to the nearest cupboard, but merely shushes the planned band away. Their wedding's weather must be a black omen from the heavens themselves, but she wouldn't even dare consider the idea of a redo.
Curtis' flair behind the camera shines best when he injects splashes of formal elements into the honeymoon period of two young lovers - how Mary first emerges from the restaurant curtains with a little halo over her head, how the camera shakes with giddiness during Tim's walk home, in the way the world seems to come alive at their feet, and in how subway buskers seem to be personally serenading their blossoming romance. When he's not leaning on voice-over the soundtrack does an adequate job, churning whenever Tim's anxiety beckons him to the cupboard, and softly accompanying the pair on piano in the gentler moments. He also utilises the montage to great comedic effect, one prominent example cycling through the various disasters of best man speeches and cutting abruptly to signal Tim's exasperation.
But for all the rain-soaked sentimentality About Time moves towards a rather different end goal than the posters and Curtis' film history might suggest. The awkward Tim has solved the problem of his fanciful love life, but what happens when he tries to wield his powers to save others in his family? Kit Kat, who bounds in and out of scenes like an overexcited puppy, crashes and burns because she does not have the power, or so Tim thinks. Contrivances that force him to let things play out aside, he learns that sometimes fate is better off left alone, and that sometimes you need to let those you love learn their own lessons. Gleeson sells the role we all envision ourselves in by trying desperately to reach out and shield everyone, and in doing so discovering the cursed side of his blessing. It's a long way just to say 'carpe diem', but the message is well intentioned. Near the end there are a series of shots of a sleepy Mary nestling her head back into her pillow, and they are cut in a way that suggests Tim is replaying the day over and over, when in fact it is merely his mind magnifying and basking in the moment. He hasn't lost his power of time travel, but he's gained a new one in the appreciation of mortality and the preciousness of life.