Way over my head.

Rating: 3/10 (27 August 2007)

I'm not ashamed to admit, despite a degree I'm not best suited to films with deep hidden meanings & what are commonly called 'arty-farty types' but despite trying hard with this, I don't believe anybody can claim that they "got it" (for want of a better phrase) in the same way nobody really 'got' Twin Peaks.
There was a range of problems here, most noticeably the promotional advertising, as this film is not really a love story in the traditional sense and it certainly is not in the time-travel genre - it is merely spread over three eras.
There is an uneven amount of time allocated to the three timelines and though the modern day one is the easiest to follow, it never brings you in. It's very claustrophobic - the lab, the hospital - there's never a sense of where they are and the outside world. There's a lot of overacting from the ensemble cast and an entire range of characters you never really care about.
The other problem was the chronology the director went with. The version I saw was fairly short anyway at 90 minutes, but even in that there were scenes repeated two, three times over. Taking the three timelines individually - even within them, the scenes did not run chronologically and I cannot see the reasoning behind that.
I would hope a 2nd or 3rd watch of this would enlighten me on how the three Tom's linked each other. If it does, it's difficult to pick up first time round - and when the whole plot of the film is incomprehensible to you, you're in trouble.
I'm sure there are those to which this film is very well suited, but they're better people than me - who was mislead by descriptions of the film which are way, way off the mark.
3/10.