✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
United Kingdom · 2013
Rated R · 2h 3m
Director Richard Curtis
Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lydia Wilson
Genre Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
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21-year-old Tim finds out that the men in his family can travel through time, and goes back in time to win over the girl of his dreams. For a while, Tim’s life seems perfect, until he realizes that even time travel can’t save him from the mundane sorrows of family life.
More than just a time-travel rom-com, this is a movie that asks you questions and doesn’t sugar-coat as many of the answers as you’d expect. Smart and sweet, funny and genuinely moving. Should probably come with a ‘there’s something in my eye’ warning.
The Guardian by Catherine Shoard
Curtis's heart is in the right place. In fact, it's all over the place – front and centre and backlighting the whole thing with a benevolent glow. But it is hard not to watch this, read the news that it will probably be his last as a director, and look to the future.
A surprisingly thoughtful romantic comedy that shirks a great deal of reason and consequence in the name of love.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
About Time is like a sermon that starts with a few good jokes and ends with tremulous exhortations to live, live.
About Time, inadvertently, reveals itself to be About Men, and how they devise lies in order to create the illusion that all women supposedly want to see.
Then Bill Nighy shows up and is awesome and punches you in the heart. It ultimately feels like a cheat, and while there won’t be a dry eye in the house, it won’t be earned.
In a word: Ugh.
Curtis ends up making a virtue out of the narrative’s episodic quality, a tendency that’s been criticized in his previous work; the film, like life, is just one damn thing after another, and that’s really the rather lovely point.
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
About Time is itself a film less directed than quilted: it’s a feathery old patchwork under which you might snuggle at the end of a tiring week.
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
There are just enough laugh-out-loud moments here to excuse the lurches into shameless, tear-jerking sentimentality.
A whimsical love letter to contemporary Parisian life in the form of an eccentric romantic comedy.
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About Time was a go-to comfort film of mine, but I have been especially grateful that it has remained on Netflix throughout this time. Despite the element of time travel, this delightful film seems to be more grounded in reality than the average romantic dramedy. Domnhall Gleeson and Bill Nighy give incredible performances, and have a rare father/son chemistry that is as emotionally close as it is playful and competitive (when it comes to table tennis, that is).