About Time (2013)

Written & Directed by: Richard Curtis, Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy

Mary (Rachel McAdams): And so it begins. Lots and lots of types of days.

*Contains spoilers*

It was my dad’s birthday yesterday.

When someone dies, it seems like you’re expected to feel things on the days that were significant in their lives. There was never anything particularly special about July 12^th, just that my dad was born that day. If I hadn’t looked at the calendar yesterday, I probably wouldn’t have even remembered. Because it wasn’t on his birthdays that I have the strongest memories of him. In fact, I can’t remember one specific birthday of his at all. I don’t even think we did something for his fortieth! I remember my dad in the insignificant, everyday moments, and that’s why I bring this film to you today. On his not-birthday.

Unlike his other mega hits, Love Actually, Notting Hill, and Four Weddings and a Funeral, Richard Curtis’ About Time remains rather obscure to most folks, though I’ll strongly argue it’s the best of them. (My friend Stevi will enjoy that I knocked Love Actually down a notch 😉)
It’s sweetness and charm will likely conjure a constant wetness around your eyes, which will then turn into full-blown sobs if your father died and it was his birthday yesterday. Or if you simply love Bill Nighy beyond comprehension. Or both.

About Time is a movie about - you may not be expecting this next bit - time travel! But there are no DeLoreans in sight, and no Eric Bana’s, (although there is a Rachel McAdams). It’s a time travel film without an emphasis on time travel. It just happens to be a factor in awkward Tim’s (Brendan Gleeson’s son, Domhnall) uneventful, basically normal-apart-from-the-time-travel-thing life.

This movie dates itself with the opening New Year’s Eve party playlist, which consists of t.A.T.u. (remember them?), the Sugababes, and Mr Brightside. I won’t lie to you and pretend I didn’t love hearing all of those songs again, and yes ma’am, I do remember all the lyrics.
Tim, like myself, has a stupid birthday – January 1^st. I’m December 25^th. We both lose. When he wakes up on his 21^st year on the planet, his dad lets him in on a little inherited trick – all the men in the family are able to travel back in time.
One of the things I immediately love about this film is how quickly the Hollywood bravado of such a power is fizzled with a swift, “We don’t seem to have messed up civilisation yet.” It’s just a little something that they can do to help enrich their own lives. No one’s out to save humanity, which I think would very much be the case for most individuals if they found out they could travel back in time. Right?!

And what’s a man in his twenties to do with his new-found power? Try to get a girlfriend, of course! We’re introduced to a very young Margot Robbie (Charlotte) who helps Tim realise that travelling through time cannot make someone fall in love with you, and instead he sets his sights on becoming a lawyer in London. Tim is flat-sharing with a disgruntled playwright friend of the family, Harry, played by Tom Hollander. Life is moving forward as per normal, until he has a very successful, legitimately – like, no lights on – blind date with Mary (Rachel McAdams). Funnily enough, in a film about time travel, the only unbelievable part is that someone with McAdams’ face doesn’t think she’s pretty. Tim arrives home from the date to discover that Harry’s play would’ve been a hit, had one of the actors (hilariously, Richard E. Grant), remembered his lines. He goes back in time to rectify the situation, garnering the play a huge success, but realising in doing so he’d never ‘met’ Mary.
A kafuffle of meet-cutes ensues until the pair finally get together after a party. Once. Twice. Third’s the charm.

If this film was just about the relationship between Tim and Mary, it’d still be a cute watch, but like Curtis’ greats, the depth of this film lies in the relationships beyond the romantic.

Tim’s family is a little crooked but entirely endearing, much like Bill Nighy’s fingers. It’s clear that both Uncle D and sister Kit Kat are neurologically diverse, but in this family, they are celebrated and loved fully.

The primary love story in About Time is that of father and child. Obviously, Tim and his dad share a special gift, but they don’t treat it as any more special than their shared love of table tennis or skipping stones at the beach. And that’s the secret to life that their ability has enabled them to unlock. A secret we’re all able to get in on, regardless of our capacity to travel backwards: that life and all its wonders happen in the in the minutiae of moments.

I don’t think I’ve watched this since my dad died in 2022, and I was furiously jealous of Tim’s ability to continue visiting his dad after his passing. My dad left before he left, with a brain disease that diminished him to a skerrick of the man I adored growing up. And God! how I’d love to jump into a cupboard, close my fists, and be transported back to our velvet, sagging sofa, where we’d each have a cup of tea and the volume turned up too loud so we could appreciate the surround sound properly. Not on a birthday, or the day he died, or a particularly good Christmas. Simply on a day when we were watching a great movie and both looked forward to talking about it after the credits rolled.

The film ends to the sound of Ben Folds Five’s (say that three times fast) ‘The Luckiest,’ which does in fact remind me of a red-letter day. Two of my best friends got married, and she walked down the aisle to that song, arm in arm with her father, who’s also no longer earth-side.
My dad drove two hours to pick me up from that wedding.

Knowing what I know now, and what this movie so beautifully depicts, is that the small, everyday moments hold a magnificence that we too often miss. I know for sure, that even though I’d love to be back in my decade-younger body tearing up the dance floor with a glass of champagne in my hand, I’d instead transport straight back into that car with my dad, because moments with him are gone. And moments are simply wonderful.

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Where to find this film:

Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video