About Time (Richard Curtis, 2013)

Richard Curtis directs his third film with an identikit style to his trademark screenplays: the characters are all again well-to-do and terribly English, shuttling between nice Notting Hill restaurants and lovely country houses with nothing in between and nary an actual concern for anything as grubby as having to work, since there are relationships to be worked out and social embarrassment quandaries to be hurdled.
But having a pop at Curtis for lacking social realism is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, and about as pointful. The true test of his films is whether they raise a laugh and if there's emotional content that gets through the sugar-coating. In both respects, About Time is a fair success. The story, with a young man finding he has the ability to visit any stage of his past life, may be lifted pretty directly from The Time Traveller's Wife, and the inclusion of Rachel McAdams as the love interest once more is hopefully an admission of the theft, but it does tweak the formula in a fairly interesting way and manages to inject moments of pathos into the overall comic tone without trampling on either aspect. The dependable presence of everyone's favourite uncle Bill Nighy as the traveller's father provides insurance for this juggling act.
Of course, the causality mechanics are riddled with inconsistencies, and it goes on too long just to deliver a soppy homily, but there is nevertheless a good deal of jollity along the way too.

6/10