About Time

Unlike my last post, this film was a delight to watch and I would gladly see it again. Sure, it has a powerful message but there are comic moments every now and then which are a joy.
Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) is part of a typical British family. Or so he thinks. After a New Year's Eve party, his father, James (Bill Nighy) tells him a deep, dark family secret. The men can travel back through time, only into the past and only to places they have been. Tim puts the plan into action right away, making up for the awkward handshake at the party the night before, kissing a girl instead.
Though his father traveled back in time to read more books, Tim knows that his will be about love. And so it is.
Tim's sister, Kit Kat (Lydia Wilson), an interesting supporting character, has a friend over for that summer. Her name is Charlotte (Margot Robbie) and Tim has a crush on her, but he waits until her last night to tell her. She says that it is too late so he travels back in time and tells her earlier, but she decides to wait and see how the rest of the summer will go. Yikes.
Then he moves to London and stays with his father's playwright friend, Harry (Tom Hollander, Mr. Collins from 2005's Pride and Prejudice). Here, he works as a lawyer and eventually has a (literally) blind date with a delightful girl named Mary (Rachel McAdams), who works for a publisher, reading manuscripts. There actual meet-cute is delightful. But then, when he travels back in time so Harry's play isn't a disaster, he doesn't meet Mary. But because he has the information he needs, he sets out to meet Mary at a Kate Moss exhibit. Though he knows about her, she thinks it is so odd that he knows who she is and this time around, she has a boyfriend. So, he once again journeys back in time to prevent Mary from ever meeting her boyfriend. At her friend's (Vanessa Kirby) lame party. Luckily, they hit it off much better this fake time around than the last. The night ends well, though of course, Tim has to go back in time, twice to get the sex right.
He and Mary are in love and for awhile, the story is rather predictable. He moves in and meets her conservative parents. But it is only after a chance (for real) meeting with Charlotte that drives Tim to propose to Mary. She is so grateful that he did that in private without tons of people around. So Tim leaves the room and whisks the band away.
Tim and Mary travel home to tell his parents and uncle, Desmond (Richard Cordery). Kit Kat is also visiting and ignores Tim's warning to be gentle with Mary. When announcing the big events, their engagement and Mary's pregnancy, Uncle Desmond responds each time, "To her?" and "It's his?" and then responding, "That's a relief."
So they get married. And Tim opts not to go back in time and change the date or location of the wedding, as the weather is windy and rainy, but he does change his best man, before finally deciding on his father. Dad, then, goes back in time and changes the speech he gives.
Their daughter, Posy, is born and Tim is terrified. And then, the film gets more complicated. On Posy's first birthday party, after a fight with her boyfriend (Tom Hughes), she drinks drunk and gets into a car accident. She isn't killed, thank goodness. Tim tries to change this and he does, only to come home and find that Posy doesn't exist. A little boy who looks nothing like either Tim or Mary is born. Tim learns that he can never go back in time before Posy's birth because then he would have a different baby. Which proves that sometimes, changes shouldn't happen because the effects could be horrible. There is always that butterfly effect to consider.
Luckily, Kit Kat does pull herself together and follows Tim's advice and gets together with his loony friend, Jay (Will Merrick). Tim also wants another baby, despite knowing the truth, but Mary doesn't. But, as Tim puts it, "Luckily, we were young and stupid," which equals baby number two.
Life is largely happy until a disastrous night when, while Mary is trying on dress after dress (the scene I hated) and Tim left her office door open, leaving the three-year-old Posy to destroy the manuscript Mary was working on and she won't let him leave the room to remedy the problem. That problem will seem small in a moment because Tim's mother calls, telling them that his father was inoperable cancer.
Here, Tim learns his father's secret. Live each day normally and then replay it, changing nothing major, so the day is lived without all the anxiety it had the first time.
Then comes the inevitable. James dies, but life does move on. For Tim, it is not the same as he misses his father. His mother (Lindsay Duncan) even mentions that she doesn't want to live without her husband.
Then, despite not wanting a second child, Mary wants another baby to have an insurance baby. Though Tim does want one, as his father wished there was more of them, he knows this means that he will never see his father again. He says they should wait and maybe she won't even get pregnant again, but she does. So Tim has one last good-bye with his father.
The film ends happily, with Tim finally learning to make each day count and live it to the fullest. He enjoys getting the kids ready in the morning and talking to his wife. All the little things in life matter and he will savor every single one of them. Kit Kat, by the way, also has a baby though Tim believes that she is not a safe or good mother, yikes.
The film is not perfect. Though Kit Kat's troubled and doomed relationship is supposed to be a major part of the film, the viewer doesn't see much of this relationship at all. They don't know that she's an alcoholic who can't keep a job though her free-spirit personality does change, but not enough to fully notice. Also, though Tim goes back and changes Kit Kat's past, undoing Posy's every existence, somehow he is able to unchange his change, with the car accident still occurring and Posy back firmly as Tim's daughter. I also found it hard to believe that two parents would leave and be able to leave their two young children downstairs for Mary to try on every dress known to mankind for an event.
Yet, the film is a delight, with some great performances. The sheer horror in Tim's eyes when he realizes that he has a different child is heart-breaking. Gleeson and McAdams are a realistic couple, you could truly believe that they are married. And the ending is happy, I like happy endings. The film may be a trifle but it's an enjoyable and thought-provoking one. There is finally a Richard Curtis film I enjoy. I may be alone here, but I didn't like Love Actually and Four Wedding and a Funeral at all and found Notting Hill only marginally enjoyable but this one is totally worth a second, third and fourth viewing.
Also of note, Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon from the Harry Potter series) makes cameo as one of the actors Tim confronts to practice his lines. This will be his last film and that's a pity. Grade: A-