HK Auteur Review - About Time

Rating: 9/10 (22 October 2013)

As a story that involves time travel, About Time doesn't even follow it's established time travel rules. The most impressive part of it is, the movie is so charming with human warmth, none of that even matters.
I found myself not even caring about the broken rules. In fact, to be honest, I was so charmed and immersed into the story and characters I did not notice the rules were broken long after the movie was over. Plot hole zealots will have a ball nitpicking this film to oblivion but those who do will completely miss the film's point. Curtis' interest doesn't lie in science fiction spectacle; the time travel explanation itself is as unscientific as it gets.
Curtis' priorities lie upon human matters, which brings me to the characters. The film is well casted. As a romantic lead, Domhall Gleeson has an everyman quality that believably would have struggles dating women. That's a common complaint I have with a lot of romantic comedies generally. Glesson seems like a normal bloke whose charm needs time to grow on someone as opposed to being immediately charming with practiced swagger. Rachel McAdams is adorable and shows good comic timing. She's played a similar role before in Morning Glory, which was one of my favorites that year. Again, unlike a lot of romance stories, McAdams' allure doesn't hang solely on her beauty. The Mary character is smart, funny and an interesting person. More importantly, she is the type of the girl one would marry and take home to your parents.
Bill Nighy is Curtis's secret ingredient and is the heart of the film. It's a subtle minimalist performance, as if Nighy played the scenes as honestly as he could without adding any character quirks or anything an actor would do to purposely chew up the scenery. Nighy is an amicable presence, is effortlessly hilarious with his deliveries and inflections of every piece of dialogue he's given.
There's also a great cast of supporting characters that cover a variety of character quirks that I don't even want to spoil here. They all have their little arcs and I think it's probably a better experience to discover them while you're watching the film.
The main point is that Richard Curtis used time traveling as a metaphor to say something profound about life. He captures moments of life's joy and sadness. In doing so, the film is more than the sum of its parts. I was warmed by Curtis' optimistic view of life and the sincere message he conveyed in About Time. For a guy that doesn't cry at movies, I can say that other people will by the film's end. Heck, I probably would have enjoyed it more if I could roll a tear.
This is probably the one of the best movies I have seen this year. If it doesn't stay on my top ten by the end of 2013, it would be very surprising.
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