About Time
2013
***½
Director: Richard Curtis
Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie, Lydia Wilson, Lindsay Duncan, Vanessa Kirby, Tom Hughes, Richard Cordery
Tim learns on his 21st birthday that the men in his family have the ability to travel back in time, which will come handy in his search for Miss Right. Apart from the science fiction twist, Richard Curtis, the writer/director of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually, treads familiar ground in his third directorial work. This is another foulmouthed romantic comedy about a bumbling Englishman who falls in love with an American girl in a modern day Britain inhabited solely by wealthy white people with vague jobs. Curtis draws influence from Groundhog Day and The Time Traveler's Wife (also starring Rachel McAdams) to tell a funny, moving, and occasionally creepy story about a man who is so busy tweaking his life that he forgets to stop and enjoy what he has. The rules on time travel are dubious, to say the least, but this is a character- and not concept-driven film full of sparkly dialogue.
