A surprisingly pleasant and impressive movie

Rating: 9/10 (31 March 2016)

My colleague, a graduate of film studies, recommended this movie to me. We were talking about easy romantic comedies to fill up the breaks you need in between the hard, strong, meaningful movies. She described it as enjoyable, the adjective I remember.
I must warn you – it is about travelling in time. And travelling in time does two things over and over again. It gets complicated and confusing (do count that as one thing) and filmmakers usually love to incorporate hugely important matters into it. The first thing can get at best interesting and it gets the viewer's attention, or terribly wrong and the viewer vanishes into the air as if they were never there in the beginning (time travelling paradox pun intended). The second usually involves a death of a person or, better, the end of the world. Most usually not cool.
About time", forgive me if I will not spare you of this, has both. There is a confusion about the exact rules of time travelling and sometimes about the time-line we're in. But the rules get explained soon enough, and they keep it quite simple – it is a romantic comedy after all. And the important events? Well, there is plenty, but the disaster movies wouldn't bet their money on any of them.
There were two main motivations of me seeing this movie. One Bill Nighy and one Bill Weasley and neither of them had let me down. Bill Nighy portrays a father of a family, a man of wisdom (gained most likely by time travelling), books (gained no doubt by time travelling) and kindness (hopefully by nature). He takes care of a family which is described utterly charmingly and leaves the viewer (at least as romantic and helplessly dreamy as I) wishing for those kinds of families to be true. It almost pains to leave the magical surroundings of an English country house to follow Domhnall Gleeson (the son) to London. But his performance does not fall far under Nighy's and it goes hand in hand with the quality of narration of the movie. The viewer is at times pleasantly surprised with unusual scenes (as the one in Dans Le noir? restaurant) and more than occasionally with satisfying dialogues (and I mean really satisfying, the kind you don't expect in romantic comedies). The makers, though, know that they have a strong material in hand when it comes to Tim's (the son's) family and not only do they visit it as the story progresses, but make it essential and even more likable with time.
I have to come back to the end of the world topic, and in this paragraph let there be spoilers, because it just needs to be done. In About time", Tim uses the ability first time to get the love of his life, Margot Robbie to want him. He spends the whole summer on that job, and, what a surprise in a romantic comedy, doesn't succeed in the end. Another surprise is, there is no unnecessary drama about this. When he, happily in love with another woman, sees his first love after years, he almost gives in to her charm, but realizes in the last second where his heart lies and runs to ask Rachel McAdams to marry him. And here I must beg you to believe me when I say there is no superfluous drama in those scenes either, all the drama is well set in the humour and sweetness and simple straightness of it all. If there are scenes that make your heart skip a beat, or your eyes to shed a tear, they are not forced onto you rudely, but find their way through the lines of a beautifully boring life.
But guess what – life is about the boring things. The little things. Well, occasionally there is a big and amazing thing, but usually it's just an ordinary life. And this movie reminds you of that, in a funny, gloriously simple way that is completely free of cheesy. My colleague described it as enjoyable, and she was right. I, however, need to add some adjectives. It may have not been a hard movie, but it was strong and meaningful. I am going to enjoy tremendously the simple taste of my flavoured beer now, and you go and give this movie a chance.