Review of ‘A Matter of Time’

In the episode he wrote, in 2010, for the eternal and fundamental television serial Doctor Who, Richard Curtis bet on the sentimental temporal paradox so that two worlds (perhaps the same) do not collide. With a precedent like this, no one can accuse him that his time-travel feature film is as seemingly miniscule (but by no means trivial) a matter of heart as the human microbes that wiped out the Martian invaders in ‘The War of the Worlds’. H. G. Wells. Curtis is interested in people and, yes, the inexorable passage of time. He knows how to see in the mechanisms of falling in love, courtship and marriage a futuristic machine where the reverse gear is not only irresistibly comical (the butterfly effect applied to parenthood), but also adorably romantic in the key of naturalistic daily life… repetitive.

I would venture to assure that, more than a groundhog day of the brit romcom, ‘A matter of time’ reflects on its fantastic excuse about the art of rewriting in humor: isn’t each jump to the past the rehearsal-perfecting of a gag? In addition to a sad and hopeful look at death (present in all of Curtis’s work) frozen in the loop of a beach and some childhood games.

For those who live love as a paradox

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DATA SHEET

Address: Richard Curtis Distribution: Rachel McAdams, Domhnall Gleeson, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander Original title: About Time Country: Great Britain, USA Year: 2013 Release date: 10-18-2013 Gender: Comedy Screenplay: Richard Curtis Duration: 123min

Synopsis: On his 21st birthday, Tim (Domhnall Glesson) will learn, thanks to his father (Billy Nighy), an incredible family secret: all men have the ability to travel to the past only with their willpower. Young Tim will use this power to make Mary (Rachel McAdams) fall in love.