By Sarah Kinney
Staff Writer
“About Time,” a new film directed by Richard Curtis, is the epitome of romantic comedy.
Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson) is an awkward guy who is told by his father (Bill Nighy) on his 21st birthday that the men of the family can travel through time.
His clumsy but sincere antics had the audience laughing aloud, but by the end, many were in tears (a combination of sadness and sentimentality).
“It was a whole lot of happy, until, bam, it was sad,” said Ashley Hatcher.
Tim decides he will use his newfound power to find love.
He first pursues love when his sister’s friend stays with the family for the summer. On the last night of her visit, Tim tells her that he has feelings for her. She responds by telling him she told him sooner.
He travels back to the middle of the summer and tries again. She tells him to ask again at the end of the summer.
Tim realizes that time travelling might be able to help him in his endeavor, but it will not make someone fall in love with him.
Tim’s next love is Mary (Rachel McAdams) who he meets during a blind date, and it is she with whom Tim get his happily ever after.
Tim does not just use his power for himself. He helps his friend Harry have a successful opening of the play he wrote.
He also tries to help his sister, Kit-Kat, avoid an abusive relationship, which ultimately leads up to a minor car crash, and he time travels with her. However, he cannot travel back in time past the birth of his children, or a butterfly effect will change who they are.
Kit-Kat ends up breaking up with the boyfriend, moving on to a more respectable man, and gets her happily ever after too.
In the end, the film is not about laughs or love or time travel at all. It is about living mindfully.
Tim’s father suggests he live every day normally then travel back to live each day exceptionally. Tim narrates at the end that he did better than his dad, and just lived every day paying attention to the little things and using time travel as little as possible.
The movie closes on him dropping a daughter off at school and having her wave, enter a classroom, then come back out, wave, reenter the classroom, and repeat.
IMDb ranks “About Time” as 7.7 out of 10 from 13,859 votes.
While Rachel McAdams is a regular romcom actor, the cast of “About Time” were lesser known in the genre.
This is not your typical Nicholas Sparks adaptation with numerous high profile names. Gleeson is a lovable Tim, and the film even sprinkles a few redhead jokes on his expense. Nighy is also rather well known, but his father figure is very different then how you will recall him from Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
Having lesser-known actors was helpful to the film because you could focus on their characters not their past, said Hatcher.
Some critiques of the film are that Rachel McAdams is co-starring in yet another time travel film where she does not get to time travel and the time travel “rules” are a bit inconsistent.
The ending “moral” is also a bit forced — the voiceover lesson is living life to its fullest.
