The Snippets of ‘About Time’
Thoughts and Review
Richard Curtis’ heartfelt and classically humanistic and sometimes always corny British classics become a household name in the UK and across the planet. How do we compare these, and where does classic British cynicism in all elements of life stand in cinema? ‘About Time’ (2013) certainly knocks it out of the park and is a quintessential philosophical question of love itself, with a humble, normal family taking the lead. Where we see other sectors of European film bursting with life through acclaimed stories, it is refreshing to welcome a kooky family with a twist of realism in a fantastical tale. Self-indulgent and beautifully paced, we find stories like Curtis’ ‘About Time’ replaying in our heads over and over. A spectacular life in both ordinary and extraordinary circumstances.
We meet a timid, red-headed, yet astute Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) in a variety of years and circumstances, given the wacky plot with a beautiful silver lining — all the men in his Cornish family were given the gift of time travel. Glimpses of the understated white home that he visits in Cornwall, to the number of homes that he crashes in London. The purpose of the plot — love, and change itself. If it can even be summed up, the power of time traveling gives characters like Tim a chance to revisit and renew mistakes made, especially when meeting someone like Mary (Rachel McAdams).
Humanistic anguish in stories of Tim’s younger sister Kit Kat struggling with alcoholism, and his father’s sudden revealing of his terminal cancer diagnosis. And the relationship between Tim and his father (Bill Nighy) is just excellent, Nighy’s blasé performance knocking us off our feet and leaving us crying before we even realised. He weaves in and out of the story to provide moral support and wistfully educated teachings, thus showcasing the great loudness of family connection and love.
Tim and Mary’s sailing relationship spans the years from their meeting at a noir restaurant in central London, to their mundane at-home moments where Mary has Tim sit down and help her pick out a dress that has him ‘actually starting to go mad’, then unto their pregnancy announcement when surrounded by family at Tim’s Cornwall estate — a deep, homely green coating the background of their dining room. Yet, we do find ourselves swimming along with no real answer for quite some time (over two hours really), making it an easy watch, however lacking punch at points. We too are presented with quite a middle-class family, making the ‘ordinary’ too basic or stereotyped. This doesn’t diminish its admirable qualities, yet it does take the role of a standard, caucasian romantic tale.
The thing about British rom-coms is that they, most often, are sweet, like the majority of the genre. However, Curtis’ wit and skewed view on feeling and sex soar above, finding hilarity in his pieces’ cynicism, and astounding heart in its realism. There is nothing particularly extraordinary about Tim and Mary — neither one of them is chasing the pink-obsessed and glorified high-school heartthrob (An American glory story like ‘Mean Girls’), nor are they the partner of a French filmmaker who somehow has a bundle of affairs strung under his belt, only for his femme fatale wife to find and hound him with, but also somehow enjoy a ménage à trois (Some basic plots for French New Wave cinema). There is no need for this because there is romantic realism and ordinary stories. Cult classics like ‘Love Actually’ and ‘Bridget Jones’ Diary’ hold this humorous cutting English wit, yet ‘About Time’ does it with flutters of individualistic warmth and suffering. And we adore European and American cinema — the grand scale of it, yet there is something so enlightening about simple stories. We find beauty in a seemingly ordinary love!
The message of humanity is clear in many, almost all of Curtis’ works — kindness and decency taking the lead in ‘About Time’ (most of the time). Nighy’s character sums up the happenings of love to ‘try and marry someone kind’ when toasting to Tim and May at their rainy, creatively beautiful wedding reception atop the cliffs of England. We are driven to create and dramatise when looking to directors like Godard or Tarantino for inspiration. Yet meticulous improv and naturalism found in works like ‘About Time’ make them romantic on another level. We can see life, though twisted and imagined in its fantastical element of time travel — it remains close to heart in its thematic approaches.
