Slices of life

Rating: Null/10 (3 October 2013)

When Richard Curtis turns to sci-fi as a vehicle for his acclaimed human stories, the results is mixed. As sci-fi "About time" is an absolute disaster. As Curtis's signature thoughtful, gentle and often humorous exploration of human feelings, it is delightful.
I'm not going to waste time on a discourse of time traveling. One does not need to be an Isaac Asimov devotee to understand the most fundamental paradox: what happens when you meet yourself in the past. As well, a key theme addressed in the proliferation of time-traveling movie is whether you can change things in the past so that you switch yourself into a difference life line. Suffices to say that Curtis is not even remotely concerned with these questions, but simply uses this loose idea of "time traveling" to suit whatever he wants to do in his movie, bending it whichever way his whims or the need of the movie steers. I can't even say there are logical plot holes because in this movie, insofar as the science of time travel is concerned, there is no logic, none, whatsoever, period.
As Curtis has demonstrated times and again, depth does not necessarily require gravity (nothing to do with the recent movie with that title). A vast majority of we mortals live a life that cannot be even remotely associated with the word "epic", with any stretch of imagination. Indeed we face life, death, partings, illness, joys and woes, but none as dramatic as what you would see depicted on the silver screen. What Curtis does best is touching the everyday audience with everyday slices of life: romance, parental siblings love, parenthood, friendship.all quite ordinary and as such, empathy-winning.
Told by VO of the protagonist, everything in this story revolves around the young man from the idyllic Cornwall coast who articles in London to be a lawyer, then becoming one. Domhnall Gleeson, intelligent but unassuming, is instantly lovable as he projects his easy humor, to both the people around him in the movie and the audience. No matter how many times I see the first appearance in any movie of Rachel McAdmas, it always comes with a "wow", especially this one, and you have to watch it to see why. The romance, as said, is slices-of-life light, but by no means lacking in depth. Bill Nighy elicits another sort of "wow" and in this movie, as the father, he makes our protagonist the envy of every son. Tom Hollander always lifts a movie a notch, whether it is good or bad (and this one is definitely good, plot disaster notwithstanding). Playing a family friend and an eccentric playwright, he is not unlike one of the caricature portraits in a Dickens novel. Lydia Wilson is a joy to watch, as the protagonist's sister with a tell-tale name of "Kit Kat". There are others too, in a large support cast, making solid contributions.
At the end of the day, after lots of laughs and many heart-warming moments, the audience emerges with an endearing though: treasure every day you life.
Sci-fi? Forget it!