Review: About Time

There are three things you may have noticed about About Time:

1. It is a Richard Curtis movie
2. It is a time travel movie
3. It is a Rachel McAdams romantic-type movie.

While it succeeds admirably at point 1, it fails miserably at point 2, and I would like to make a case for point 3 meaning something far meatier connotations than it currently does. (And, yes, amazingly points 2 & 3 have co-existed before).

Point 1:

Being a Richard Curtis movie, it is of course charming, cutely eccentric, unashamedly sentimental and just potty-mouthed enough to remind you it is British, and therefore less shallow than an American movie. For this reason alone, About Time will do quite well. 

Are they not adorkable?

Point 2:

As a time travel movie, it's pants. If you're interested in the philosophical nature of time travel scenarios, the unforeseen consequences of altering past decisions or the worrisome establishing of multiple timelines (and you should be), About Time will drive you bananas. Curtis is not so much interested in time travel so much as ruminating on how to spend our limited time on earth wisely. 

Curtis makes some lovely observations about family & how to live an ordinary life well and, perhaps, he's on to some poignant points.It's just a pity he's not into tight plotting or space-time continuum logic. Perhaps I've been spoiled by too many great episodes of Fringe and Community, but when time travel / alternate realities are introduced to the plot, it is to be taken seriously (preferably with gloomy, mind-bending results). 

Curtis doesn't, and he makes this clear upfront by the whimsically casual way he Bill Nighys time travel into the story. Sure, when it comes to magic realism, the less exposition, the better, but forgive me for wanting to be at least slightly baffled by the unforeseen implications of tiny shifts in time. I'm pretty willing to suspend my disbelief and overlook plot holes for time travel conundrums, but there need to be some solid ground rules / internal logic. Curtis stays light on internal logic, favouring a more freewheeling approach instead.

Tim's time travel abilities leave little in the way of undesired consequences, but much in the way of magical fun & male wish fulfillment. It's kind of a straight-forward Erase / Rewind situation, with a few arbitrary twists and bugs (sperm logic, anyone?) thrown in for some plot tension. 

But who cares? It's not the point. You're not watching a Time Travel Movie, you're watching a Richard Curtis movie. Since the point of the movie is kind of not over-thinking life, but just enjoying it, I suppose a similar approach is to be advised for the film itself.

Point 3

Yes. This is the second time travel romance that Rachel McAdams has made. How bizarre. This one makes the other one seem more legit from a time travel point of view. But I'd probably still want to watch this one again before that one. 

It is very bizarre that Curtis seems intent on presenting Rachel McAdams as some kind of frumpy, quirky, smart, loner girl. Yeah, no, vintage dresses, hipster glasses, brown hair & a weird obsession with Kate Moss do not the lovely McAdams into an outsider frump make.

I really wish the description "a Rachel McAdams movie" would carry with it more weight and thrill of anticipation. She's really a much better actress than her agent seems to think. Someone please give this woman a good script. I'd really love to see her play a murderer, or a vile politician, or basically any character not impossibly adorable and lovely. At least half the time.   

But more to the point, McAdams is lovely and huggable as ever in About Time. Domhnall Gleeson is equally charming and together they have a sweet chemistry. Though all the meet-cutes, chat-cutes and grow-cutes would appear to indicate that Tim and Mary are soul mates of sorts, just one single tiny fight would have gone a long way to making their relationship more believable. More problematically, it is unforgivable that Tim never bothers to mention his gift / condition to Mary. Especially since he does little with it but trick his way into her life, heart and pants. 

Really, it kind of fails as a romcom, cause it's ultimately much more of a father-son movie, which bring me to my conclusion.

Conclusion

Taking the film for what it is, here is what is great about it:

• Bill Nighy 
• The father-son bits of the story 

Curtis makes a strong case for the importance of (eccentric, accepting, British, tea drinking) families, and presents a touching, incredibly sincere (if underdeveloped) father-son relationship. Again, Curtis is painting in broad strokes of father-son relationships generally (as neither character is developed enough to really delve into the relationship specifically) but, in its final stretch, Curtis' script and film find a sincerity and depth nothing else in the film touches, and emerge with easy sentiment marginally defeated by an authentic delivery of earnest longings. If only Curtis could give us a more workable plan for spending less time at work and more time with teenage sons (standing in a cupboard and clenching your fists likely won't work for most of us). 

All in all, a somewhat lazy, but quite charming & uncommonly meditative Richard Curtis outing. Probably great for first dates. Even better for father-son dates (although, if you already do those, you probably don't need to see this).

Review: The Place Beyond the Pines

Derek's Cianfrance's debut, Blue Valentine, blew my freaking mind. A searing, uncommonly intimate portrait of a young marriage alternately blossoming to life and crumbling away that performed beautifully on every level. It was a heart-, nay gut-wrenching powerhouse indie. To stop me going on about it any longer, you can go here to read my Blue Valentine Review.

Cianfrance's second film as writer and director, The Place Beyond the Pines, is a slower, more measured exercise; a great sophomore effort that shows Cianfrance is not interested in repeating himself, but in letting his stories guide him through the maze of human relationships.

In Pines, Cianfrance and his two co-writers Ben Coccio & Darius Marder, are interested in father-son relationships and the defining presence they have on the lives of men; how deeply the fact of being a father, or a son, fulfillingly or not, impacts how we shape our identities.

Pines is not as intense or swooning a film as Valentine. It's a more ambiguously contemplative slow-burner, boldly presented in three divergent but narratively & thematically connected chapters. On the surface a crime thriller (or three crime thrillers), but really a multi-generational, multi-protagonist (always a difficult trick to pull off) character study.

Chapter 1:

The strongest of the three and the one that feels most likely to succeed as its own full-length film. It's almost a pity when Pines moves on from it, but everything that follows gives it a different resonance & weight of context. In a way, it lingers far longer in the memory precisely because Cianfrance abandons it so soon.

This chapter follows Luke (Ryan Gosling), a heavily tattooed hipster/stuntman who seems to exist purely to smoke broodily on the edges of society & look ridiculously cool doing dangerous stuff on a motorcycle. A spark is awakened, though, when he learns that a former fling Romina (Eva Mendes) has given birth to his son & he sets out to be an involved father & breadwinner - even if it means robbing banks (spectacularly, with motorbike getaways) & luring Romina away from her stable family life with a new boyfriend. 

You can't deny the guy his passion and dedication to being a present father, even if his presence is destabilizing. When Luke says that that he wants his son to know him - because he didn't know his father & look how he turned out - it comes off massively poignant rather than trite. Surely Fatherly love of such conviction counts for something, even if the father in question is less than stable? Well, that's the question. 

This segment of the film has everything going for it. Cianfrance writes a great character for Gosling and Gosling, when given great characters, is naturally dynamite. He plays Luke all coiled rage and beautiful intentions. He doesn't say much but he has a helluva lot more to do than look cool (there's a lesson here for Nicolas Winding Refn). This is a great character with a great trajectory, and Cianfrance gives him some great scenes - from crying in a church to racking up the tension as he passive aggresively puts together a baby cot in Romina & Kofi's house (uninvited) to his final moments on screen, he is electric. Gosling & Mendes also have great onscreen chemistry - Mendes, with this and last year's Holy Motors, is starting to make a legitimate case for being taken seriously. Starting.

DOP Sean Bobbitt also does some of his best lensing here, milking some gorgeous shots from both Luke's theme park workplace & his time spent on motorcycles. He also creates a gentle, melancholy intimacy for Gosling & Mendes' sad-awkward-beautiful family portrait. I should also mention that Ben Mendelsohn is fantastic as Luke's odd/unpredictable/white trash employer/friend/crime mentor.

Chapter 2:

The story moves on to Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a nervous-seeming cop who becomes a hero, and alienates his family as he wrestles with his conscience, after he kills a perp in the line of duty, in less-than-ideal circumstances. It's all less angsty than it sounds because a) Bradley Cooper is good, but not yet as good at inner turmoil as he is at loud, cutesy bi-polarism and b) Avery is kind of a passive character who seems to feel bad about a lot of things but not do much about them. When he does take action, you can't help but question his motives.

Which brings us to the next part of the story, which introduces Ray Liotta as Deluca, a tough, sinister corrupt cop leading a band of similarly tough, corrupt cops who tries to draw Avery into his circle of extortion. Moral dilemmas ensue. Ray Liotta is great, of course. Rose Byrne is also around, as Avery's longsuffering wife but, while she has some good moments, her presence feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity.


This part of the film is odd, but not in a bad way, simply because it takes the narrative in such a different direction and seems to change the tone so sharply. As a character, Avery is hard to read or warm up to and, though there is a clear sense of chaos brewing, it is hard to tell quite how it is going and how it will all tie together.

Chapter 3
AJ (Emory Cohen) is a teenager sent to live with his father in Schenectady to help him stabilise after he gets in trouble over drugs. His father, however, is distracted by his campaign to be elected New York City General and a son with drug-related misdemeanors is less than convenient. The father in question is Avery Cross.

At his new school, AJ befriends broody loner Jason (Dane Dehaan) and, sensing a shared void, the two strike up a tentative friendship. Jason is a sensitive kid, ready to boil over under the surface, while AJ is a jock of sorts, hiding his frailty under a layer of douchiness. What neither boy knows is that Luke is Jason's father and their stories are inextricably linked.   

Both young actors are excellent (although Dehaan is the broody standout) and the writers must be commended for writing such vivid teenagers: complex beasts negotiating posturing and insecurities they don't yet fully understand. Far from the jocks and nerds trope usually presented as high school standards, they are authentic, unsure adolescents trying to find their way into adulthood and sensing that they may be looking for the same things.

This part of the film works and really drives things home because Cianfrance takes it slow and gives it plenty of time to breathe. Things rise to a slow, broody conclusion that simmers out into the film's thematic inclinations. 

In the end it all comes together as a slow burner that was always intended to be an enigmatic thinkpiece rather than a straight drama or thriller. Cianfrance is more interested in the legacy of fathers and sons, the choices - even bad ones - that produce life and belonging, and the ones that leave a void.

Each of the characters is somehow marked by the choices of those who went before them; Luke never knew his father while Avery is always living in the shadow of his. Both AJ and Jason, in turn, continue to live out shadows of the secret crimes, compromises & sacrifices of their fathers, without even knowing it. It is simply imprinted on their spiritual DNA.