Passing Time

Rating: 7/10 (12 November 2013)

This film is mildly recommended.
That tried and true formula about time travel is working overtime in About Time. a pleasing but slight little comedy. Just how many films have successfully taken this plot device and made it fresh and appealing. Not many. (Midnight in Paris, Back to the Future, Twelve Monkeys, Big, Time After Time, and The Terminator come to mind.) However, the number of movies which take that gimmick to hackneyed and overdone results seem endless. (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Philadelphia Experiment, Premonition, Kate and Leopold, 17 Again, The Adjustment Bureau, The Lake House, The Butterfly Effect, Frequency, Somewhere in Time, and The Final Countdown, all misfires that still boggle my mind.)
With About Time, many moviegoers will find this latest version of time hopping delightful, even romantic. I found it to be an innocuous trifle, a diverting enough two hours of amusement. The film has its charm, mostly due to its likable cast, but it follows that overused "what if" time-changing formula and rarely pushes its own limits. It stay safely within the lines and never wants to journey outside the box, at least until its conclusion.
The simple story follows the familiar road map of time travel ala Groundhog Day, another pleasant comedy with the same theme in mind. Tim is without a love connection, a misfit on the dating scene. After a father-son discussion on his 21st birthday, he suddenly learns that he can change what has happened in his own life to his advantage. His past mistakes can now be rectified and his future looks more promising with this newly acquired power. Although he cannot change history, he can relive those awkward moments and at least somewhat control his own destiny and finally get a girlfriend.
Domnhall Gleeson plays Tim and he is fine in this role. It's not a real stretch, but he makes his character believable even with this unbelievable set-up. Rachel McAdams is his love interest, Mary, and this actress also generates some innovation to a clichéd role. There is a strong chemistry between the two young actors which helps to elevate the predictability of the film. Even better is Bill Nighy as Tim's wise father. Nighy brings subtlety and warmth to his patriarch role and his acting skills are precise and spot-on.
Richard Curtis wrote and directed this movie. His specialty seems to be the romantic comedy genre (the annoying Bridget Jones' Diary, the better Notting Hill and Love Actually films, and the superb Four Weddings and a Funeral ) and this film is one of his minor efforts. This time, his script starts off way too cute and takes awhile to build any real emotion or tension. The film is almost stuck in its own self-imposed time warp, afraid to jump from sentimental sit- com situations to honest adult issues. It's not until the midpoint of the film that About Time finally deals with familial complications that directly affect the relationship between Tim and Mary, and only then, does the film begin to become compelling. (Still, as with other films of this genre, this film falls prey to the illogic of time travel and its proliferation of selective changes and their lack of repercussions that never mesh with the character's sense of reality.)
Perhaps if Curtis had spent more time and more initial re-writings with his screenplay, About Time would have become a more memorable love story. As it is, it's not the worst of times you will have, but then it's not the best either. GRADE: B-
ANY COMMENTS: Please contact me at: jadepietro@rcn.com