From the creator of chart-topping movies such as Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral, we are given yet another soon-to-be modern classic, About Time, a British romcom science fiction film that revolves around the ever so popular theme of time travel.
In my opinion, I was more curious as to seeing a former Weasley brother (Domhnall Gleeson) take on the role of a leading man in a romantic comedy than seeing the actual film itself. But I was surprisingly impressed at how perfect he was in the role of Tim Lake, a socially awkward 21-year-old who throughout the movie is tormented with unfortunate events until he learns he has the ability to time travel, which gives him the power to go back in time and undo all of his mistakes.
Alongside Gleeson is the adorable Rachel McAdams. This underrated actress, most commonly found lurking in romantic comedies, worked perfectly as Mary, the equally socially awkward 21-year-old who finds herself infatuated with Gleeson after not only meeting him once or twice, but three times without knowing who he was.
The whole plot of this story followed very close to Groundhog Day a 1993 American comedy film relating off the same theme as time travel, where a man changes his past to better his future. This being said, About Time lacked some sort of originality when it came to the plot and story line–boy has hard life, travels back in time to change hard life, then has good life, followed by a realization that in the end he doesn’t need time travel to have a good life…And that’s basically it.
While watching this movie, I also found the whole time travel aspect to become very confusing, being that this movie is sprinkled with plot holes. In the beginning of the movie, Gleeson’s father (Bill Nighy) sets the three basic rules when it comes to his newly found power of time travel:
1. Only male members of the family can time travel.
2. You can only travel into the past.
3. Traveling back in time before your child’s birth will cause a different child to be born and your original child will be lost.
All throughout the movie these rules are broken, rule 2 being broken the most, pretty much every time Gleeson travels back in time. The two other rules are broken very deliberately within the last two scenes of the movie.
All in all, if you are going to the theater with your friends or your date to watch a feel-good movie, then I would highly recommend this one. But, if you are the type of person to watch a movie only to catch the director’s mistakes then you’ll have a hayday, because there is a plethora throughout. Score: 5/10
Gabby Shusterman/Photo Editor
