Wednesday, October 2, 2013

About time

LEAD CAST: Domhall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie  DIRECTOR: Richard Curtis  SCREENWRITER:  Richard Curtis  PRODUCER: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Nicky Kentish Barnes  EDITOR:   Mark Day  MUSICAL DIRECTOR:  Nick Laird-Clowes  GENRE: Comedy, Drama, Romance  CINEMATOGRAPHER:  John Guleserian RUNNING TIME:  123 minutes  DISTRIBUTOR:  Universal Pictures  LOCATION:  Great Britain

Technical assessment:  3.5
Moral assessment:  3
MTRCB rating:  PG 13
CINEMA rating:  V 14

            Tim Lake (Domhall Gleeson) gets a rather weird gift when he turns 21: his father (Bill Nighy) reveals to him a family secret that’s supposed to be kept between them—all the men in the Lake family are gifted with the ability to time travel.  No need for elaborate space suits and abracadabras: just find a dark secluded place (like a closet), close your eyes, clench your fists tightly, tell yourself where (or when) you want to be, and poof, you’re there.  Tim thinks it’s a joke until he tries it to rectify something that happened at a party the previous night—and it works.  Time leaves Cornwall for London to study law and find the girl of his dreams.  After a suspenseful and virtual “blind” date in a lightless bar he sees her—and they fall in love.  
            Director Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral) spins a delightful rom-com that weds the whimsical and the earthbound.  Despite the incredible element of time travel, the plot advances credibly and does not really capitalize on the supernatural to drive home its point.  Gleeson (Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter series) and McAdams are naturals as a loving couple, matching chemistry and perfect comic timing; Nighy couldn’t have been better cast.  About time scores high in the technical department, from characterization down to costume and make-up (note McAdams’ bangs an inch too short of her desired look).  While there’s really nothing extraordinarily exciting going on, the stimulating story and the fast pace keep viewers hanging on to scene after scene till the end.
            It is a pleasure to find a down-to-earth movie among the sci-fis and superhero flicks in the multiplexes’.  About time is also a soft-sell for the joys of marital fidelity, planning a family, growing up being cared for by devoted parents, etc.  The movie shows that in our time when broken families seem to be the norm, and when parents and children become strangers if not enemies, it is possible to still build your own world where children are wanted, welcome, and raised in love.  Premarital sex is implied, but considering that About time is not a Filipino movie but is rather set in a culture that permits it, this slightly off element is overshadowed by the many other positive values it depicts.  Even time travel is used here as a mere device in delivering the movie’s message: that while there are things in our past that we wish we could change, life sooner than later lets us glide into maturity until we reach that point when living from day to day we find joy and contentment.