A tad saccharine for my movie tastebuds, I did mostly enjoy this film; in terms of production value and overall tone, it felt similar to my script for 20 August (though that is far less romantic and slightly more brooding).
Just after turning 21, Tim is told by his father that the men in the family are able to travel in time. Well, only within their own lifetimes, and only backward, never into the future. Unless it's the future that has already been experienced, apparently, because instead of having to live again from whatever point he travels back to, he can move forward to the last point he lived? I think?
Time travel movies offer a host of problems, but this isn't a science fiction film and so it isn't trying to be particularly methodical about the ways and means.
In any case, Tim finds this ability handy for fixing little fuck-ups in his life. And for meeting Mary and wooing her, etc.
The wrinkles in time begin when the babies arrive . . . If you want to keep the very child you have, you cannot go back before their lifetime, else you may end up with an entirely different family(?) . . . Again, I think that was how it worked.
And then there were the usual other dramatic moments: Sister in a car accident, Dad's cancer. (And apparently you can take Sister with you when you travel, if you hold her hand. Why only the men in the family anyway? Was the screenwriter sexist? Ah, whatever.)
The bottom line is that, even if one can go back and do things over, what does that mean? And is it always worth it?
It was a cute, sweet film that might could have done with a few more laughs (I think more of Harry's hyperbolizing would have been fantastic; he should have his own movie) and maybe should not have been so . . . predestined . . . with its twists and turns.
No comments:
Post a Comment