About Time. About Love.

Since when did time traveling become a cliché? After reading and watching so many stories about boys and girls trespassing across time and space to save the world from being destroyed or to simply cause more troubles to people around them, I gave out a snuff when I saw the title of the film: About Time. “Here comes another guy with this magical power to mess with what happened in the past.” Nevertheless, I clicked on the play button without a high expectation simply I got so bored and tired of this eight-hour flight.

The film begins with the monologue of our “extraordinarily ordinary” protagonist, Tim, a college student who is too shy and clumsy to attract the attention of the girl he secretly loves. When Tim was told that he, as all the male members of the family do, could travel in time, predictably, just like most movies about men with previously unknown superpower, we see the serious face of the father and ridicule and disbelief in the son’s eyes.

The film flows relatively slowly as Tim tries out his newly gained ability. He travels back and forth to fix every embarrassing and awkward mistake he makes to leave the best impression before the girl of his dream. Unfortunately, obviously the ability of time traveling cannot help him win the heart of the girl he loves: Tim gets rejected and heartbroken no matter at what point he expresses his feelings to her.

Aiming to be a lawyer, Tim moves to London, where he meets Mary, his love at first sight after a pleasant conversation in Dans le Noir. After a sequence of first encounters when Tim travels back to make sure every detail is perfect, the two finally fall in love. The montage of scenes in the tube station where the two kiss goodbye and depart for work is just so sweet and cute that melted my heart. The stormy, if not catastrophic, wedding scene was one of the most hilarious parts of the film.

Tim realizes the limit of his power after his daughter is born, that traveling to a time before his child is born would affect the child to be born. Knowing this limit, Tim becomes more cautious when using his power. About the same time, Tim’s father is diagnosed with cancer and not long after passes away. Tim keeps traveling back into the past to see and play ping-pong with his dad, until Mary decides to have another child. The decision to have a new baby forces Tim to say farewell to his beloved dad, after which he becomes more mature. At the end of the film, Tim realizes that the secret of happiness is simply to enjoy every ordinary day as if it is the last day of his life.

Such a relaxing and pleasant comedy about love and happiness. I was totally blown away when the ending song began, knowing that this would be one of the films that I would recommend all my friends to watch. You say there is a flowed logic how Tim’s sister is not supposed to be able to travel back because only male members in the family have this ability? Come on, who cares!