The film is about a young man with the ability to time travel who tries to change his past in hopes of improving his future.[7] The film was released in the United Kingdom on 4 September 2013.[8]
The film received mixed reviews from critics. At the box office, it grossed $87.1 million against a $12 million budget. It was dedicated to actor Richard Griffiths,[9] who died a few months before the film's release, marking his final film appearance.
Plot
Tim Lake grows up on the coast in Cornwall, with his father James, mother Mary, absent-minded uncle Desmond, and free-spirited younger sister Katherine ("Kit Kat"). The morning after a less-than-great New Year’s Eve party, James tells Tim that the men of their family can travel back in time to moments they have lived before. Tim tests this by going back to the previous night’s party and changing a few events. When he returns, James discourages him from using his gift to acquire money or fame, and Tim decides to use it to improve his love life.
The following summer, Kit Kat's friend Charlotte visits. Although instantly smitten, he waits until the last day to tell her; she tells him he should have told her earlier. Tim travels back in time to tell Charlotte in the middle of the holiday, but she suggests he wait until her last day. Heartbroken, he realises she is uninterested in him, and time travel cannot change anyone's mind. Believing he has lost true love, Tim becomes jaded.
Tim moves to London to work as a lawyer, living with his father's acquaintance Harry, an angry misanthropic playwright. He visits a Dans le Noir restaurant, where he meets Mary, an American who works for a publisher. They flirt in the darkness, and afterward, she gives Tim her phone number. He returns home to a distraught Harry, whose new play's opening night has been ruined by an actor forgetting his lines. Tim goes back in time to help the actor, so the play is a triumph.
However, when Tim tries to call Mary, he discovers that by going back in time to help Harry, the evening with her never occurred so he does not have her number. Recalling Mary's obsession with Kate Moss, he attends a Kate Moss exhibition every day until he sees Mary.
Mary, having never met Tim, is initially confused but still allows him to join her and her friend. During lunch, he discovers that she now has a boyfriend. Tim goes back to when and where they met, turning up early before the potential boyfriend arrives, and persuades Mary to leave with him instead.
Their relationship develops and Tim moves in with Mary. One night, he encounters Charlotte, who is now interested in him, something he initially seems to consider before he turns down the invitation of intimacy as he is in love with Mary. Tim returns home and proposes. They travel to Cornwall to announce their engagement and Mary’s pregnancy. They marry and have a daughter Posy.
Kit Kat's relationship and employment struggles lead her to drunkenly crash her car on Posy's first birthday. As she recovers, Tim decides to intervene: he prevents the crash and takes her back to avert her relationship with Jimmy. Returning to the present, he finds Posy has never been born but he has a son instead. James explains that changing events prior to their children's birth may alter the exact child conceived.
Tim accepts that he cannot solve his sister's problems by changing her past; he lets the crash happen, ensuring Posy's birth, and he and Mary help Kit Kat face her problems to improve her own life. She settles down with Tim's friend Jay and has her own child. Tim and Mary have another baby girl, ensuring Kit Kat's future.
Tim learns James has terminal lung cancer and that time travel cannot change it, as going back to remove his habitual smoking would undo his and Kit Kat's conception. His father has known for some time, traveling back in time to effectively extend his life and spend more time with his family.
He tells Tim to live each day twice to be truly happy: first, with all the everyday tensions and worries, but the second time noticing how sweet the world can be. Tim follows this advice; his father dies, but Tim travels to the past to visit whenever he misses him.
Mary tells Tim she wants a third child. He is reluctant as he will not be able to visit his father again. Tim tells James, so together they travel back to relive a fond memory from Tim's early childhood, taking care not to actually change the experience to avoid causing any changes to the present.
Mary gives birth to a boy, and Tim realises that it is better to live each day once. From that point on he decides to not time travel at all, and comes to appreciate life with his family as if he is living it for the second time.
By Curtis's own admission the conception of the idea "was a slow growth".[11] The genesis of the idea came when Curtis was eating lunch with a friend and the subject of happiness came up. Upon admitting he was not truly happy in life, the conversation turned towards him describing an ideal day. From here Curtis realised that the day of the lunch, for him, constituted such a day, which led to him deciding to write a film about "how you achieve happiness in ordinary life". Thinking that the concept was too "simple" he decided to add a time travel element to the film.[11]
Although the production contracted out various effect houses to try to make the time-traveling effects feel like more of a spectacle, they found the resulting work "just completely wrong" tonally and instead focused on a more low-key approach. Curtis has opined "that in the end, it turns out to be a kind of anti-time travel movie. It uses all the time travel stuff but without it feeling like it's a science fiction thing particularly or without it feeling that time travel can actually solve your life."[11]
Curtis is primarily known as a screenwriter, and About Time was only his third ever film as a director (plus one television short); he said the film was likely to be his last film as director, but that he will continue in the film industry.[12]
Zooey Deschanel had been in talks for the role of Mary, but ultimately, the role went to McAdams.[13][14]
Release
About Time's initial release was set for 10 May 2013 but was pushed back to 1 November 2013.[8] It premiered on 8 August 2013 as part of the Film4 Summer Screen outdoor cinema series at the historic Somerset House in London.[15] It was released in the United Kingdom on 4 September 2013. It received a limited US release on 1 November, with a general release on 8 November 2013.
The film became a surprise success in South Korea, where it was watched by more than three million people, one of the highest numbers among the foreign romantic comedy films released in Korea.[16] It grossed a total of $23,434,443 there, its highest country total.[17]
Reception
About Time received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 70% based on 164 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Beautifully filmed and unabashedly sincere, About Time finds director Richard Curtis at his most sentimental."[18]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 55 out of 100, based on reviews from 34 critics, indicating "mixed reviews".[19]
Catherine Shoard of The Guardian compared the film to Groundhog Day noting it "is about as close to home as a homage can get without calling in the copyright team" and describes Domhnall Gleeson as a "ginger Hugh Grant", which "at first, is unnerving; as About Time marches on, Gleeson's innate charm gleams through and this weird disconnection becomes quite compelling." Shoard gave the film two stars out of five.[20] Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph praised the comic timing of McAdams and Gleeson, but criticised the film, comparing it to a quilt, calling it "soft, frayed at the edges, and oh so comfortable" and gives it three stars out of five.[21]
Leslie Felperin of Variety called the film "reassuringly bland" and says there is a sense of déjà vu, especially for anyone who has seen The Time Traveler's Wife, also co-starring McAdams. Unlike that film, she has no knowledge of his powers in About Time, resulting in a "fundamental lack of honesty in their relationship." Felperin noted British reverse snobbery would put many off this and other Curtis films, but that this would be less of a problem among American Anglophiles and those willing to suspend disbelief, taking the characters as British "versions of Woody Allen's Manhattanites (but with less angst)". Felperin praised the chemistry of the leading couple "that keeps the film aloft" and the supporting cast, while also criticising the stock characters as being too familiar.[3]
Plot holes
Critics have pointed to the film's plot holes relating to time travel; how big or how many plot holes varied with the reviewer. Kate Erbland of Film School Rejects noted: "The rules and limitations of Tim's gift aren't exactly hard and fast, and the final third of the film is rife with complications that never get quite explained. Rules that previously applied suddenly don't apply ... the time travel rules aren't exactly tight and are occasionally confusing".[22] Megan Gibson, writing in Time magazine, said that science fiction fans would be put off by "gaping time-travel plot-holes", again suggesting that Tim's father's rules are repeatedly broken.[23]Mark Kermode agreed that Curtis "sets up his rules of temporal engagement, only to break them willy-nilly whenever the prospect of an extra hug rears its head".[24] Other critics who agreed include Steve Cummins of the Irish Post (the film is "riddled with plot holes"),[25] Matthew Turner of View London (an "unsightly pile-up of plot holes and logic problems"),[26] and Nicholas Barber from The Independent, who called the explanation of time travel "shockingly inadequate" and asserted that "Curtis keeps leaving questions unanswered – time and time again".[27]
^Kermode, Mark (8 September 2013). "About Time — review". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 14 April 2016. Retrieved 10 December 2016.
^Cummins, Steve (6 September 2013). "About Time: Film Review". The Irish Post. Archived from the original on 9 September 2013. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
^Turner, Matthew (4 September 2013). "About Time Film Review". ViewLondon.co.uk. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 29 September 2013.
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