Astonishingly uneven, overlong, McAdams is Subdued .... but still worth seeing

Rating: 7/10 (10 January 2014)

Old reviewer's secret. It's called the watch test. If during the film you have to look at your watch to see how much time is left, the film loses points appropriately. The test (once mentioned by the late Roger Ebert) works because it requires so many subliminal and subconscious cues to generate the behavior. And this film fails the watch test. Most viewers will check their watch (or phone or mobile device) more than once. Because it is overlong. And because there are weak points in the script. Which is itself astonishing because this is a Richard Curtis film (Love Actually and many more hits) and if Richard Curtis were to sire a horse, you would expect that horse to win the Derby. Now before you dismiss this review, I encourage you to do a test -- watch the Time Travelers Wife which by coincidence is also about time travel and also stars McAdams. And you will see what I am getting at. So, that aside, what we have here is a very strong film that purports to be about a sci fi theme but really is about family, and brothers and sisters, and friends and relations, and mothers and children. The time travel is really incidental, as the ending makes clear. Also, Curtis who also directed seems to have gone out of his way to tone down McAdams (who usually "glows" in her films, see RED EYE). This is accomplished by McAdams herself (who does an excellent job of keeping her charisma in check) and by giving her a haircut that makes her look like a squirrel. Good film, but you can't avoid the feeling it could have been better.