“Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Love Actually” writer Richard Curtis wears his heart on his sleeve, and on his lapel and on his forehead. The man’s a big pink Mylar balloon of love.
But for all its glutinous cuteness, damn if “About Time” doesn’t sneak up and sock you in the tear ducts. I tried not to fall for it. I failed.
On his 21st birthday, young Brit Tim (a cheery Domhnall Gleeson) learns from his dad (Bill Nighy) that the adult men in the family have a secret: They can duck into any closet and jump back in time. This creates lots of opportunities for do-overs (and, you’d think, sneaking a peek at the stock tables). For Tim, who like many a ginger lad finds ladies impervious to his many charms, this is a chance to finally get a girlfriend: innocent American Mary (Rachel McAdams, who turns the adorability up to and beyond recommended levels).
Curtis has been coming up with sketch ideas for longer than half the screenwriters working today have been alive, and yet he’s still got fresh stuff: The meet-cute of the two principals is one of the most brilliant ever devised, but I won’t give it away.
Then off we go for an isotope of “Groundhog Day” — an inferior one, but with enough new ideas to enliven it. Tim, in making a time-trip to help out his surly roommate (Tom Hollander), messes up his love life, which illustrates the dangers of altruism, but Curtis soon straightens everything out.
Tim gets the hang of things. Commit a gaffe in conversation? Travel back in time and get it right the next time. Sexual encounter a bit dull? Stop, rewind, do it like a master of the sheets.
Except there are unexpected limits and trade-offs, and here’s where the movie distinguishes itself from “Groundhog Day.” After a midsection that’s frustratingly banal — Curtis depends heavily on thin gags like a doddering relative who keeps saying the wrong thing — the movie turns emotionally engaging.
The father-son scenes are offbeat, funny and genuinely warm. Gleeson (who played one of Ron Weasley’s brothers and is the son of Irish actor Brendan) is not going to work as Curtis’ new Hugh Grant — he’s a sidekick, not a leading man, and the couple of scenes in which beautiful women invite him home after a single nice conversation border on sci-fi. But he works just fine with Nighy, who makes these scenes glow. With his lightly worn authority and quietly generous spirit, he makes for the ideal dad.
I don’t agree with the notion that his chosen field dooms Curtis — that being a rom-com genius is an oxymoron on a par with being the Michelangelo of macramé. Practically every movie follows one formula or another, especially the injustice-is-everywhere indies that reap the awards. Curtis, who recently lost both parents, takes a universal sorrow and finds a new approach that, for all of the surrounding plot contrivance, feels true and real.