Richard Curtis the writer can manipulate emotions with the skill of a pro. He is the architect behind the screenplays of such paeans to love as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually. The last of which he also directed. His take has always resonated on an emotional level with me so I greeted About Time with open arms. But here, for the first time, his perspective isn’t so noble. The result is his most self-centered take on love yet.
A poor sad sack of a fellow had just been told by his dad that the men in their family have the power to go back in time upon reaching their 21st birthday. Now if you’re asking yourself, but how? You’re already too smart for this claptrap. You simply walk into the nearest dark closet, clench your fists, and wiggle your nose. Ok, so I made that last part up, but the rest is the gospel truth straight from the movie. I’m willing to suspend disbelief and the logical explanation of a DeLorean and/or a wormhole to accept hokum if it serves a good story. So does he use his extraordinary gift for the betterment of humankind? Ah nothing so altruistic. No, he harnesses the ability to win the woman of his dreams. Now here’s where it gets a bit icky. The chronicle is infected with purely self seeking motives which underlie everything our protagonist does. You see it doesn’t really matter what women need in his world. It’s all about him and what Tim craves is sweet, lovable American girl Mary.
It’s nice to see Rachel McAdams in any movie. Mary is played with genuine sweetness by the actress and her charisma smoothes over a lot of vexing plot points. She is cheerfully oblivious to Tim abilities. Witness when she falls in love with another guy, Tom is able to “fix” things so that she never even meets what could have been the man of her dreams. Tim is actor Domhnall Gleeson, best known as Bill Weasley in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Parts 1 and 2. This is a role that Hugh Grant could’ve easily embodied with a lot more personality. Although as great as Hugh Grant is, I question whether even he could make a character driven by such egocentric goals, seem sheepishly adorable. The script so desperately tries to portray Tim in this way. Domhnall Gleeson’s motivation is so self serving he’s more Ugh Grant than Hugh Grant.
Richard Curtis slathers on the adult contemporary hits and stocks the cast with a coterie of wacky stock characters from a sitcom. On the surface, there’s a vague “I did it all for love” mentality that might not seem so pernicious. But this is a purely one-sided affair. Tim is exploitative, deluding an unfortunate woman to benefit his own greedy ends regardless of her feelings. It’s pretty creepy. I kept waiting for some moral comeuppance. Some instance where our “hero” would learn that women are not objects to be manipulated, but it never comes. Furthermore there is very little in the way of conflict for Tim because any time something doesn’t go quite the way he wants, he can merely zip back in time and re-do the moment so that it’s perfect. There’s one particularly troublesome suggestion that he actually sleeps with Mary 3 times in the same night, unbeknownst to her, until he gets the experience right. I wonder how she would’ve felt knowing that once she says yes, he can have his way with her over and over without her consent. Groundhog Day did this subject infinitely better and that comedy acknowledged the inherent ethical dilemma of deceiving people to suit your own selfish desires. That’s clearly the inspiration for this. At its best the message of About Time is treacle and at its worst it’s downright immoral.
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