A Lovely, Lovely Film

Rating: 8/10 (30 January 2014)

About Time is full of really nice people who love each other, and you want nothing but good things for all of them. And that often turns out to be possible, thanks to the Lake family secret. All the Lake men have a limited ability to travel backward in time — only to earlier points in their own lives, true ("We can't go back and kill Hitler or anything."), but usually getting a 2nd run at various awkwardnesses and infelicities is all it takes to smooth out life's little bumps and jolts.
Aside from the time travel, the biggest imagination-stretcher is that Rachel McAdams's Mary is a single gal in London in her early 20s and doesn't have a boyfriend. Our hero, the gawky but endearing Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson), recognizes the cosmic injustice in that and determines to use his powers for good (or, in this case, love). But between his wistful adieu from the shy, plain girl he's met in a lights-out bistro and getting set to call the number she's punched into his cell phone, he performs a good deed for a friend, and it turns out that his little jaunt into the past has erased his evening's conversation with Mary from her memory and her number from his phone.
That's about the highest level of stress this film ever reaches. It's the farthest thing on Earth from an action-adventurer. It's mainly a love story with minor elements of comedy (sometimes it takes several re-runs at the past to get things just right, and we see the failed attempts in quick succession) and pathos.
It's written and directed by Richard Curtis, who earlier did About a Boy and Notting Hill, so you know he's got the characterization down cold, and Bill Nighy, Lydia Wilson, Lindsay Duncan, Tom Hollander, Richard Cordery, and Margot Robbie are pitch-perfect in supporting roles. And, if I didn't emphasize it strongly enuf earlier, you'll really like all of these people, even the crusty curmudgeonly playwright Harry.
Go see the movie.You won't be sorry. You can thank me later.