Review: 'About Time' is winning blend of clever sci-fi, sweet romantic comedy

About Time Rachel McAdams Domhnall Gleeson.JPG
Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson in "About Time." (Courtesy photo)
John Serba | By John Serba | The Grand Rapids Press
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on November 07, 2013 at 8:12 AM, updated December 22, 2013 at 2:51 PM


‘About Time’

3 ½ stars (out of 4)

MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexual content


Director: Richard Curtis

Run time: 123 minutes

“About Time” is a literal title, not a colloquialism. It might also be called “About Love” or “About Happiness,” but approaching those subjects within the context of time’s inevitable passage is more insightful.

The wisdom in Richard Curtis’ film is simple and sentimental. But it’s still wisdom. His protagonist, the 21-year-old Tim (Domhnall Gleeson), learns to appreciate what he has while he has it, by means of a wacky plot device: the men in his family can travel through time. All he has to do is close his eyes, ball up his fists and think really hard about where on his timeline he wants to be. There’s a whoooosh sound effect, and there he is, getting a do-over on the whiffed kiss from the pretty girl at the New Year’s Eve party.

There are some rules. Tim learns some from his father, an eccentric, dry-witted Englishman played by Bill Nighy, who drops heavy ideas like they’re feathers. He can only move backward within his own life, then back to the point where he left. Others, he learns by trial and error, such as how going back before the point of a child’s conception might result in a different child, because a different sperm fertilized the egg. The rules are loosey-goosey, and inevitably, sticks-in-the-mud will point out logical inconsistencies in the Curtis’ narrative world, which is a lot like ours, except with bits of inexplicable magic, and characters who are a shade or two more clever than most people in real life. If you’re worrying too much about Tim leaving messes in alternate timelines/universes as he jumps back and forth, you’re missing the point.

Tim provides first-person voiceover narration. A pale redhead from quaint Cornwall, England, he identifies himself as “too tall, too skinny, too orange.” When he learns about his gift, he says he knew he would always use it in pursuit of love. He’s a sweet and endearing fellow who adores his flighty sister and wants his friends and family to be happy. He crushes on a blond, modelesque family friend who stays with them for the summer, and jumps forward and back, trying to figure her out. He applies his logical trial-and-error to her, but she is beyond logic. His conclusion? “All the time travel in the world won’t make someone love you.”

He moves to London to be a lawyer, rooming with his father’s friend, Harry (Tom Hollander), a bitter, grouchy playwright. Tim meet-cutes with Mary (Rachel McAdams) at one of those restaurants where you eat your meal in total darkness. In the light, she’s perfect: mousy, modest, cute, a little awkward, quietly confident. Tim goes home and finds Harry in an execrable state. The debut of his new play was a disaster. Tim jumps back in time, fixes it, saves Harry some suffering even he didn’t deserve – but accidentally reverses his own fate. He never met Mary.

Curtis wrings solid comedy out of Tim’s plight. He re-woos Mary through convoluted means, and uses his power to re-do their first night in bed together. Not that it was that bad, but, you know, a “nice” time doesn’t leave her exhausted and disheveled. Curtis tells the love story of Tim and Mary over the course of several years, through Tim’s eyes. Marryin’s and buryin’s and babies being born, all that. He often corrects his personal foibles with some fudging of the space-time continuum. He does the same with moments of suffering, hoping to assuage or avoid them. He still experiences them, though, and learns from them. He compulsively quests for happiness, for himself and others.

That’s where “About Time” becomes more than an entertaining, clever gimmick. Tim is a complex, vividly drawn character in an unassuming sci-fi thought-experiment narrative. It’s not the deepest thought, but it resonates in the pain, sorrow, joy and ecstasy he feels, that we all feel. His emotions are genuine. Given the chance, would you live certain moments in your life differently? Yes. No. Maybe. To the paranoid, the movie might induce anxiety – you only get one shot at this life, so don’t screw it up. To most of us, however, it’s about acceptance. Time will march on, with or without us. Tim’s life is patently absurd. Ours isn’t. But that doesn’t mean it has to be a tragedy instead of a comedy.
