ABOUT TIME 2.7***

 

Writer-director Richard Curtis (who wrote and directed the critically acclaimed hit “Love Actually” and wrote or co-wrote  “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Bridgett Jones’  Diary”) helmed this 'time travel romantic comedy-drama'. It stars Domhnall Gleeson (who's most famous for playing Bill Weasley in the last two “Harry Potter” films) as a 21-year-old lawyer in training who discovers from his father that he can time travel and then uses his gift to get a girlfriend, Rachel McAdams. Bill Nighy plays his also time travelling dad. The film is as much a father-son tale as it is a romance.  

 

At the root, this film's message is living life to the fullest. Enjoying the simple things in life, like seeing your children growing up, sipping tea with a loved one, or just the pleasure of buying a sandwich at the local store during a lunch break. The film reminds us that much of our lives are spent worrying about what has happened in the past and what could happen in the future, and that much of this worry will never come to be and ends up just being lost time and wasted emotions.  

 

This isn't one of Richard Curtis's best films, as a writer or a director, but it does have most of what you expect from a Richard Curtis movie: a hapless, awkward, unexpected leading man, a beautiful, almost unattainable leading lady, a whole host of colorful supporting characters and, not to forget, a wedding. Throw in some time travel and you have yourself a story. But the problem is that the story goes over the top at times with too much sugary sentiment. But Curtis does a fine job balancing the comedy and the emotional drama although  eventually it feels like it's being laid on a bit too thick when subtlety would have been better.

 

There is a nice shift from a boy-girl story in the first half to focusing on the father-son relationship in the second half, and both were  enjoyable to watch in their own right. Bill Nighy was fantastic in the movie and pretty much a scene-stealer. He had great chemistry with Domhnall Gleeson who at first I was unsure of but he quickly won me over. He delivers a great comic performance in the more light-hearted rom-com areas of the first half, and a subtle dramatic performance in the emotional, albeit overly sentimental, second half.  McAdams, who is no stranger to the time-travelling love story narrative, venturing in her third quest as the desired love interest, first in the” Time Traveler's Wife” and two years later in Woody Allen's acclaimed “Midnight In Paris”, enchants and reminds us just how adorable and likable she really is in these roles.  

 

Surprisingly it is rated “R” which I disagree with… this is a  “PG13”. There is some language and sexual content but not enough to rate an “R:”.

 

Clark