My Favorite Scene: About Time (2013) “The Family Secret”

Every family has secrets.  Every family has traits that are passed down from fathers to sons.  Most families do not require a father-son chat on the nature of inherited time travel.  Tim’s (Domhnall Gleeson) is an exception.  On his 21st birthday, he inherits a gift that all the male members of his family have, his father (Bill Nighy) explains: he can, in fact, travel back in time.  It is one of my favorite father-son chats in film history because while it is about as something as bizarre as the time travel, it contains the awkwardness and general generational incredulity that is at the heart of most father-son bonds (or lack thereof).  About Time is a slightly science fictiony love story, but at its heart, it’s about family, the moments that begin and end them, and more than anything the bond between fathers and sons and how it changes and evolves as we age.  It’s a funny, touching, and seriously underrated film that if you haven’t seen-I couldn’t recommend more.

Movie Review: About Time (2013)

When I turned 21, I’m fairly certain my father wished me a Happy Birthday.  It would be very unlike him to do otherwise, so I’m sure it’s so.  Truth be told, I don’t quite recall it and it’s not that I got slogged and woke up in a 7-11.  It was…ordinary.  My father certainly didn’t tell me that all the male members of my family, at the age of 21, could travel through time.

That talk between Bill Nighy and Domnhall Gleeson is what begins the dramedy that is About Time.  It’s not a super power.  “It’s not as if I can go back and kill Hitler or shag Helen of Troy,” Nighy explains.  He’s mostly used it to read.  Everything.  Twice.  It comes in quite handy, traveling back a few minutes or a few months.  Undo a bad decision; forgo a gaffe.  Gleeson has to employ it quite a bit to get things right when his character meets the love of his life in Rachel McAdams (always good, usually horrible movie, so happy not the case).

If you’ve seen the marketing for the film, you’ll know it’s by Richard Curtis, who wrote and directed Love Actually, which crept into my favorite films list as it did many people who’ve discovered it after the fact.  The film is marketed as a romantic comedy and it’s not.  To label it as a simple romantic comedy is what studio marketing departments do because it’s far more difficult to sum up in a few shots that this film is about exactly what it says: time.  How we spend it, whom we spend it with, how it can be egregiously wasted, and-ultimately-how best to parse it out over the course of a lifetime.

Domnhall Gleeson (son of veteran actor Brendan Gleeson) is immensely likable and remarkably capable carrying the film on his back given that his only prior screen experience was playing Charlie Weasley in the last few Harry Potter movies.  He’s funny and earnest, extremely awkward and ultimately believable.  The movie chronicles his life, his relationship with his Mary (McAdams) and with his father (Nighy, funny and wonderful).  It’s really an ordinary life, but most of us have those.  We just seldom realize how precious moments are until faced with TIME.  If we did, we’d probably duck into a closet, squeeze our eyes tightly shut and concentrate on the time and place we’d like to revisit.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t try it when I got home.

It’s not as funny as Love Actually, but it is devastatingly likable.  I mean both of those descriptors quite literally.  These are characters you grow to like terribly over the course of the film and time’s course is ultimately not kind to any of us.  That’s what makes our journey through it so treacherously particular.  This was an unexpected gem.
9.25/10

Related articles

• Domnhall Gleeson – Could ginger hair and good genes make him a movie star? (rogersmovienation.com)
• NYFF 2013: Richard Curtis, Domhnall Gleeson, Bill Nighy Celebrate ‘About Time’ (reellifewithjane.com)

New Poster for I, Frankenstein

The first time I was watching the trailer for this, I thought to myself, “Gosh, this feels like Underworld.” Two seconds later FROM THE PRODUCERS OF UNDERWORLD smacked up on the screen. The Underworld movies are my guilty pleasure movies. They are dumb fun. They are also not good. I don’t care; it’s a guilty pleasure. If they want to use Frankenstein like this, I’m fine with it. Universal is looking at creating a shared universe for their classic monster characters (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, etc.) that would be similar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That’s where I want authenticity and reverence to lore and source material. If Aaron Eckhardt is going to fight Franky clones and a race of demon gargoyles (not entirely sure what they’re supposed to be), then fine. It might be fun. It might suck. I might be both and I may still like it. Who knows? Here’s the latest poster and I, Frankenstein will broodily march its stitched self into theaters on January 24, 2014.

Trailer Time: I, Frankenstein (2014)

First Two Face.  Now Frankenstein.  I think Aaron Eckhardt needs a sit down about body image issues.  I want to believe this is going to be the Frankenstein movie that will sear that character into this generation’s zeitgeist.  Directed by Stuart Beattie and also starring Bill Nighy, Miranda Otto, Jai Courteny, Kevin Grevioux, Samatha Reed and Luke Wright; I, Frankenstein is an early 2014 entry, opening January 24th.  Films opening in January are not historically zeitgeist searers.