About Time

This film might still be playing somewhere, perhaps as a second run. Although About Time takes a somewhat serious premise, it is mostly a lighthearted romantic comedy as well as family drama.

The main character Tim (Domnhall Gleeson) is told by his father (Bill Nighy) that on his 21st birthday he acquires a family power carried by the men in the family. He can return to the past of his own life and if he chooses, make changes. At first we see Tim, being a young man, using this power for what young men have their mind most on--trying to find the right girl. In fact, we see Tim trying again and again to fix and refix his life so that his romance with a woman he meets by chance at a restaurant, Mary (Rachel McAdams), happens with the maximum happiness. But Tim is cautioned by his father that what he changes in the past can change things in the present, for himself as well as for others, so Tim has to be careful how big the changes are. There are plenty of meet-cute moments and romantic-cute moments as Tim often excuses himself so he can go into a dark room (a requirement of the power) to re-fix events.

Later the film gets more serious as Tim sees almost too late that his messed up sister has screwed her own life up, and he tries to help her without, as cautioned before, screwing up events that could be unbuilt by his changes. Tim gets some life lessons from his father (Bill Nighy) who counsels him on whether to live in the moment or try to return to happy times again and again.


The role taken by Rachel McAdams felt more like it was originally meant for a British actor and it would have been nice to have a British unknown in the role. The story needed a little more balance between the two halves--the romance and the father/son aspects--and I think the family story could have been the theme to follow throughout the story, rather than the romance taking up so much of the earlier part of the film. As such McAdams' character is not overly dimensional and she plays a woman whom the man will move heaven and earth to be with as she often has been doing in her romantic movies. There are some beautiful Cornwall settings of the family home. Domnhall Gleeson fits well as a bit awkward presence trying to impress a girl, and Bill Nighy is well-cast as his father. Costars include Lindsay Duncan as Tim's mother and other actors who might be familiar to you.