As Much About Family As It Was About Romance

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2013)

On New Year's Day of his 21st year, Tim Lake (Domhall Gleeson) learns from his Dad (Bill Nighy) that the men in their family can travel back in time to specific moments in their lives. There will be rules that cannot be violated lest past events altered will give rise to completely different outcomes. Naturally kind-hearted Tim uses this power to get himself a girlfriend, among other good-intentioned deeds in conscious "Groundhog Day" scenarios.
Domhnall Gleeson (whom we will recognize as one of the elder Weasley brothers in the Harry Potter series) felt really sincere as dorky Tim, and his relationship with insecure Mary, sweetly played by Rachel McAdams (already the heroine of love stories like "The Notebook" and "The Time Traveller's Wife"), was very disarming indeed. They were an ideal couple here. The scenes on how he successfully got Mary to be his girlfriend and their very different wedding and the reception were their best scenes together. OK, Gleeson may look a bit younger than McAdams, but you still can't deny that their positive chemistry was truly palpable.
However despite this being marketed as a romantic love story, I felt more emotionally-connected with the scenes played between Tim and his quirky family, especially Tim and his Dad. There may have been scenes which violate the very rules upon which their time-traveling is based, but the sentiment was so poignant I decided to just overlook them.
The cinematography of the Cornwall coastal panorama and the streets of London were very charming. The perfectly-timed entrance of selected pop oldies and ethereal new songs adds to the emotional atmosphere created by the situations.
Some scenes that I felt went a little too long, contributing to a running time of more than two hours. The whole side plot about beautiful Charlotte (Margot Robbie) could have been shortened, as well as that endless scene where Mary was choosing a dress to wear to an event.
Overall though, this is a very pleasant British love story by Richard Curtis, who wrote and directed classics like "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill" and "Love Actually." Again like his other films, "About Time" is also about love and family, but this one had an actual fantasy element in play, and that unique magical touch adds to the fun and the romance of the story.