About Time

About Time (2013)

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R - 123 min - Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi - 8 November 2013
Big Blue Sky Rating : 7.6/10

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Director : Richard Curtis
Writers : Richard Curtis
Stars : Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lydia Wilson

At the age of 21, Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson) discovers he can travel in time... The night after another unsatisfactory New Year party, Tim's father (Bill Nighy) tells his son that the men in his family have always had the ability to travel through time. Tim can't change history, but he can change what happens and has happened in his own life-so he decides to make his world a better place...by getting a girlfriend. Sadly, that turns out not to be as easy as you might think. Moving from the Cornwall coast to London to train as a lawyer, Tim finally meets the beautiful but insecure Mary (Rachel McAdams). They fall in love, then an unfortunate time-travel incident means he's never met her at all. So they meet for the first time again-and again-but finally, after a lot of cunning time-traveling, he wins her heart. Tim then uses his power to create the perfect romantic proposal, to save his wedding from the worst best-man speeches, to save his best friend from professional disaster and to ...

Not the best of Curtis but a very likable addition to his collection of rom-coms

Over the years, British writer Richard Curtis has scripted some wonderful romantic comedies: "Four Weddings And A Funeral", "Notting Hill", and "Love Actually". So, by now, we know the features of Curtisworld: locations in London, upper middle-class English types, lots of friendship and love, plenty of wry and sometimes rude humour, a socially inhibited boy, an attractive North American girl, a doddery elderly male relative, a freaky young female relative, probably a wedding, probably a funeral, obviously some heavy rain, well-chosen songs, and finally a clever film title. "About Time, which Curtis has both written and directed, delivers all the familiar ingredients and is a charming addition to the canon but, while I really liked it, it was not love actually.

This time, we have two love stories and a time travel device that enables both to achieve special fulfilment. There is the father-son relationship between Bill Nighy and Domhnall Gleeson and the sexual relationship between Glesson and (Canadian) Rachel McAdmas (coincidentally "The Time Traveler's Wife"). Both the technique of time travel (clenching hands in a darkened space) and the rules (forget the 'Butterfly Effect') are rather ridiculous, but the device serves to pose some almost philosophical questions: If you could travel back in time to change things in your life, how often would you do it and what would you change? In the end, is it a power that you would use to change the facts of the past or your perception of the present?

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To the Wonder

To the Wonder (2012)

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R - 112 min - Drama, Romance - 22 February 2013
Big Blue Sky Rating : 6.1/10

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Director : Terrence Malick
Writers : Terrence Malick
Stars : Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams

Neil (Ben Affleck) is an American traveling in Europe who meets and falls in love with Marina (Olga Kurylenko), an Ukrainian divorcée who is raising her 10-year-old daughter Tatiana in Paris. The lovers travel to Mont St. Michel, the island abbey off the coast of Normandy, basking in the wonder of their newfound romance. Neil makes a commitment to Marina, inviting her to relocate to his native Oklahoma with Tatiana. He takes a job as an environmental inspector and Marina settles into her new life in America with passion and vigor. After a holding pattern, their relationship cools. Marina finds solace in the company of another exile, the Catholic priest Father Quintana (Javier Bardem), who is undergoing a crisis of faith. Work pressures and increasing doubt pull Neil further apart from Marina, who returns to France with Tatiana when her visa expires. Neil reconnects with Jane (Rachel McAdams), an old flame. They fall in love until Neil learns that Marina has fallen on hard times. ...

A series of images adding up to one relationship, and you get to add the meaning

Following up the dramatic success of "The Tree of Life" (2011), Terrence Malick has gone simpler but more abstract with "To the Wonder". Following only one relationship, we see Neil (Ben Affleck) and Marina (Olga Kurylenko) fall in love, grow apart, fight to stay together, and fight to stay apart. It's about the resolution, or lack of resolution, of one ill-fated romantic relationship.

The key is that we see them in these various stages. This is an entirely visual film with nothing else. No dialogue. There are a few random lines of narration and even fewer lines that one character may speak to another character, but following the strict definition of dialogue – a conversation between two or more people – there is no dialogue. There also isn't any characters. That's not really true, but we don't learn their names (I only got them from a plot summary), we don't learn anything about their past, and we also don't see them in between the turning points in their relationship.

The turning points in their relationship is likely a major factor in determining if you'll like the film. We apparently jump back and forth in time with flashbacks and flash-forwards but there is no distinction between the scenes, so you're just left to guess at what point of time they're in. But for lovers of subtle works of art, it also means that you get to figure out on your own what causes the relationship to crash and burn or rise above the flames.

At first I was offended by the depiction of the failing of their relationship. I thought Terrence Malick was the opposite of a misogynist and was representing women as ultimate perfection and completely innocent no matter how deplorable their actions. But then I realized that he wasn't saying anything at all. He was just presenting us with images and we get to add the meaning and words. Like a Mad-Lib, but not very funny.

Take one relationship, add in some beautiful scenery – both European and stateside, add in some Christian undertones, add in children, jobs and visas to create some important societal structure within the relationship, and then remove all conversations and orientation of time and you've got "To the Wonder". You can get out of it almost everything that you put into it – there's also something lost in the translation.

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