NAME: About Time
SPECS: Film, 2013, R, Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy
SUMMARY: A young man discovers that he has a hereditary ability to time travel within his own lifetime.
OVERALL RATING: J + L
MATURITY LEVEL: Language and sexual content enough to get it an R rating
WHAT I’VE BEEN STRUCK/MOVED BY: I actually didn’t realize that it was by Richard Curtis, the same writer/director as Love Actually, until the credits but I was strongly suspecting it. It has that same unique blend of an arguably over-emphasis on how crude and broken people can be with a remarkably sweet and wholesome core. It even had a similar montage of real life footage with a beautiful monologue/voiceover. While Love Actually will remain my favorite, I thought this one was beautiful too.
Unexpectedly, my favorite storyline was the relationship of the protagonist with his father. Bill Nighy plays a lovely, relaxed, British-ly affectionate father and the way he loves his son was easily the most moving part of the whole story for me.
I think perhaps, sharing the opening voiceover might be the simplest way for you to decide if this is something you want to watch:
I always knew we were a fairly odd family. First there was me. Too tall, too skinny, too orange. My mum was lovely, but not like other mums. There was something solid about her. Something rectangular, busy and unsentimental. Her fashion icon was the queen. Dad, well, he was more normal. He always seemed to have time on his hands. After giving up teaching university students on his 50th birthday, he was eternally available for a leisurely chat or to let me win at table tennis.
And then there was mum's brother, Uncle Desmond. Always impeccably dressed. He spent the days just, well, being Uncle Desmond. He was the most charming and least clever man you could ever meet. His mind was on other things, though we never found out what. And then, finally there was Catherine. Katie. Kit Kat. My sister. In a household of sensible jackets and haircuts there was this, well, what can I call her - nature thing. With her elfin eyes, her purple T-shirts and her eternally bare feet. She was then, and still is to me, about the most wonderful thing in the world.
All in all it was a pretty good childhood. Full of repeated rhythms and patterns. By the time I was 21, we were still having tea on the beach every single day. Skimming stones and eating sandwiches, summer and winter, no matter what the weather.
(Spoiler alert section below)
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SPOILER ALERT SECTION
A FEW FAVORITE QUOTES:
Uncle D: Your father, I think, is not so well. Cancer.
Tim: Yes.
Uncle D: I'm very unhappy about it, Tim. At your wedding he said he loved me.
Tim: He does. I know.
Uncle D: That was the best day of my life. So this is probably the worst.
….
Mum: I am f***ing furious. I am so uninterested in a life without your father.
….
And in the end I think I've learned the final lesson from my travels in time; and I've even gone one step further than my father did. The truth is I now don't travel back at all, not even for the day. I just try to live every day as if I've deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.
…..
(the father giving the best man speech at his son’s wedding) I'd only give one piece of advice to anyone marrying. We're all quite similar in the end. We all get old and tell the same tales too many times. But try and marry someone kind. And this is a kind man with a good heart. I'm not particularly proud of many things in my life, but I am very proud to be the father of my son.
WHAT I WAS STRUCK/MOVED BY - SPOILER VERSION:
Still the thing I was the most moved by was the dad and the way he loves his son. But I think the thing that will stick with me as be a reminder of something I’ve been trying to learn for a long time is the advice his father gives him about how to use his gift of time traveling:
And so he told me his secret formula for happiness. Part one of the two-part plan was that I should just get on with ordinary life, living it day by day, like anyone else.
But then came part two of Dad's plan. He told me to live every day again almost exactly the same. The first time with all the tensions and worries that stop us noticing how sweet the world can be, but the second time noticing.
And though the final step of the gift is actually to not use it at all and simply to live everyday as if you traveled there on purpose, this stage includes advice I’ve been trying to take to heart for a long time. B.J. Novak also said it in an interview on Armchair Expert, “If we could trust that it would turn out ok, we would enjoy everything.” It struck me when he said it because I have grounds to believe that everything will turn out ok - not necessarily the way I want it to, but in the “all things work for good for those who love God” kind of way. There is good reason for me to trust that everything will turn out ok… and when I do manage to trust that, I do enjoy the present moment so much more.
I think all of the reflections in the movie were lovely and worth spending time with, but this one felt particularly relevant to me.
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