One's goodwill is further tested by silly riffs about "prostitutes", the done-to-death montage of The Woman Who Can't Decide Which Dress To Wear, and a wedding speech in which dad tells son that he loves him. Did this brusque social expediency seem in any way charmless or hurtful to the writer? Apparently not – but it does to us. Tim dumps his own friend in like fashion. Cut to a minute later and Charlotte reappears, having told her friend to (and I quote) "go and have dinner on her own". She is also with a friend, which puts the kibosh on the pair of them having a proper catch-up. A small example: emerging from the theatre, Tim and his friend run into Charlotte (Margot Robbie), who was Tim's first crush. You keep hearing the clunk of a writer who doesn't "get" human interaction. Early on, Tim says in voiceover (echoing Hugh Grant in Love Actually), "I have never bumped into a genuinely happy rich person", which is not a generality that will bear close scrutiny in a Curtis film. The script strikes one horrible false note after another. But the small print reveals it's travel of a limited kind: the beneficiaries can only trip back (not forwards) within their own lifetime, so there's no assassinating Hitler or saving the Titanic or whatever. You just nip into a dark closet or cupboard, clench your fists and, hey presto, you're off. On his 21st birthday, Tim is informed by his father (Billy Nighy) that the men of their family are secretly blessed with the gift of time-travel. He plays Tim, a lanky, pale, ginger-haired young fellow who at certain angles looks positively handsome he is, in the Curtisian way, a hopeful romantic. Its cast is strong, the location work is attractive, and Domhnall Gleeson is so disarming in the lead role that at times the film becomes almost bearable.
But I couldn't help myself.Ībout Time is actually an improvement on Richard Curtis's previous outing as writer-director, the repulsively sleazy and puerile The Boat That Rocked. In fact, I'd like to offer her a personal apology and give an assurance that I'll try not to behave like that in a cinema again. I felt very sorry for the young woman at the screening of Richard Curtis's new film who found herself sitting right by the muttering loony on and on he went, cursing beneath his breath, clicking his tongue in exasperation and quietly repeating the words "I hate this film" as if it were a mantra.