Happy (early) Valentine’s Day!
To honor the most lovey-dovey day of the year, I decided to revisit one of my all-time favorite romantic comedies. “About Time” is a heartwarming film with a solid romantic throughline, but what I appreciate about it most is that it’s so much more than a romance. It’s a love story, but above that, it’s about the multitude of ways that love can permeate our lives– from our friends to our romantic partners to our family. Plus, it has time travel–what’s not to love?
It’s a film that perfectly encapsulates the highest highs and lowest lows of our lives, as well as the most mundane moments of these funny little lives we lead. It’s poignant–it feels like a warm blanket, a steaming cup of tea and a soft hand-knitted sweater. I remember going into this film for the first time expecting a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy like any other. Still, I can’t emphasize enough how derivative that assumption is.
“About Time” is primarily a family story, reflecting the age-old adage that we should never take what we have for granted. The father-son relationship is truly a delight, and Bill Nighy is fantastic. That’s not to say that the other performances aren’t phenomenal; Domhall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams have palpable onscreen chemistry, and both bring life and energy to their characters, which makes us root for them right from the start.
While it is so much more than romance, the core relationship at the film’s center is the primary engine of the plot. That makes the entire story work. Mary and Tim start out as strangers, like your average romantic comedy–but what makes this film extraordinary is that it doesn’t end when they eventually start a relationship. We get to see their relationship develop well through the family stages. We get to watch their relationship, as well as the characters themselves, grow and develop over time.
Their marriage and eventual family help to raise the stakes as Tim grapples with the merits of using his family’s ability to step through time and start to understand the meaning of life. The potential cost of not only his relationship with his wife but also the lives of his children emphasizes the emotional weight and toll that using his ability to walk through time takes, which in turn adds to the emotional weight of his relationship with his father. In turn, Tim eventually concludes that life may be so beautiful, strange and unique that the best way to go about it is just as anyone else would.
It has a beautiful message, and I resonated with it much more than I thought I would when I first watched it. It discusses love in a broader scope than many other romance movies I’ve seen, and I thought it would be fun to cover it on this platform since it’s a hidden gem in the romantic comedy genre. Everything about this movie sings with such genuine sincerity and authenticity that it’s impossible to step away with dry eyes and an unfilled heart.
Rating: 4.5/5
