Pass the Popcorn review

Rating: 7/10 (9 December 2013)

Richard Curtis, the director and writer of About Time, is a well-known screenwriter, whose most famous scripts include those for the Bridget Jones movies, for Love Actually and for Notting Hill – so you kind of know what to expect from him already: a cute and funny romantic comedy, but no Oscar bait. About Time, I think, tries to be something more than a romantic comedy, and in a way it manages to do so: it's not only about a relationship between a man and a woman, there is also the love for family members. Unfortunately, this movie fails in creating any drama – it's more like watching a compilation of images from someone's life – and in this aspect it should have just sticked to the romantic comedy genre.
Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) lives an almost ideal life with his almost perfect family: the only thing he's missing is a girlfriend. But when his father (Bill Nighy), on Tim's 21st birthday, reveals to him that all male members of their family can travel back in time, he decides to use this ability to find a girlfriend. He moves to London, gets a job and meets Mary (Rachel McAdams), with whom he falls in love, one evening in a café. He discovers that changing the course of events by going back in time has major consequences, not all of which are pleasant. Therefore, he must decide what is more important, and realise that the ability to travel back in time perhaps isn't that much of an advantage.
It's impossible not to notice similarities with other movies, especially with the anime The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, but that's a good thing. The main problem with this movie, like I already said, is the fact that there is no real story, no drama, no problems that last till the end of the movie and our heroes have to resolve. For example, after he finds Mary and gets her number, he has to go back in time to help a friend – and ends up never meeting her. This story, his searching for the girl of his dreams, could have been stretched out to last an hour and a half, but instead the issue is resolved in ten minutes, and the movie goes on for more than an hour. The main character's sister Kit Kat (Lydia Wilson) is the only one who has constant issues she needs to resolve, but her role is too marginal to be really relevant.
The main problem I just explained might as well be the movie's best quality. It is just a collection of segments from someone's life, and almost every segment is positive, which makes it more a therapy than a movie. Most of the time, while watching About Time, you'll find yourself laughing and feeling happy, and once you exit the theater, you'll probably feel satisfied with the life you're leading – which is the message of the movie. The actors, the cinematography and the music help with that: the cast is talented, the scenery beautiful (and mostly shows sunny days or calm nights). One may argue that the movie is too idealistic, that nobody leads such an awesome life in reality. My opinion is that it's not about what happens to you, it's about how you handle it, and the characters in About Time handle it very well.
Rating: 7/10 Read more at http://passpopcorn.com/