About Time: Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House

Nothing makes my heart pound and my face light up like a good film. 

I'm not a fussy film-watcher as I'll see pretty much anything and my taste is eclectic and often unpredictable. I'm as happy watching the Cornetto trilogy as I am seeing Gregory Peck reluctantly shoot a rabid dog or Bridget Jones orchestrate a dinner party with blue soup, omelettes and marmalade. My breath is caught when I spot a girl in a red coat and as Gotham city falls to the hands of a masked tyrant. I'm on the edge of my seat equally as velociraptors tear apart a kitchen looking for frightened children and the hallowed halls of Hogwarts are blasted to pieces. I get that inevitable lump in my throat as an old man steers a house tied to thousands of balloons on an adventure to fulfil a childhood promise and Tom Hanks screams WILSONNNN. I’m fired up and inspired as Idris Elba promises to cancel the apocalypse and the USS Enterprise reaches warp speed once Sulu remembers to disengage the external inertial dampener.

It's moments like that provide that unavoidable heart flutter, that tingle of excitement and that small smile that appears before you can do anything to stop it. 

You're experiencing something special and there's something truly magical about the fact that that you're sharing it with thousands of other people simultaneously. Strangers all over the world are connecting through laughter, sorrow, frustration and an entire spectrum of emotion. All of a sudden the world feels a lot smaller, but in an infinitely comforting way. In a world torn apart by death, disaster and utter devastation on a daily basis, it's truly lovely to know that for a couple of hours you can be transported anywhere from the streets of Notting Hill to Asgard to Hackney to Monstropolis. Anything is possible.

[Tom Hiddleston gif set from here]

It's for this reason that I love the medium of film with all of my being. Theatre will always hold a special place in my heart, but there’s something about film that grips me and won’t let go. It inspires our imaginations and teases our senses, transporting us to expertly crafted worlds both far from and incredibly near to our own.

For me, there's nothing more exciting than seeing a film, and going to an open-air screening has been on my bucket list for a while. From everything I've read, it seemed that London was famed for doing outdoor film screenings well as long as the silly British weather decided to cooperate (and even then they worked fine as no other nation is quite so well equipped to deal with queuing and sitting for hours in the rain and actually enjoying it). As soon as the line-up for the Film 4 Summer Screen at Somerset House was announced I rang my mum and told her we were going to see something. After much deliberation (maximum five minutes) I settled on About Time, a film that I planned to see anyway at the cinema. The prospect of a World Premiere and outdoor screening seemed too tempting to pass up, and I immediately booked tickets.

It ended up being one of the best ideas I’ve ever had. Despite considering myself well and truly a Londoner now, I still get excited by typical tourist things such as going past St Paul’s on my way to uni and I always have to take a photo from Waterloo Bridge each and every time I cross it. Clearly the novelty of no longer living up north hasn’t worn off. I think Somerset House is one of the most beautiful buildings in London, and I’ll often pop in to wonder round the courtyard and revel in the architecture when I have a break between lectures and classes during term-time. Watching a film nestled in the courtyard has to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

I’d recommend it to anyone and everyone. Do whatever you can to get a ticket to the remaining films - sell a kidney or your firstborn etc – as it’s not something to miss. Take blankets, cushions (the floor is hard and cold, be warned) and jumpers. Remember a picnic, some popcorn and couple of cans of Pimms. Pick a spot, settle down and it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’re going to have an amazing evening. As my mum said as we packed up our blankets: it’s easy to forget you’re inside. Freudian slip if ever I saw one. It’s pretty special to be able to look up for a split second and instead of being greeted by a ceiling you’re watching the clouds lazily roll overhead; birds swoop across the courtyard; and stars twinkle in the night-sky.

 

A DJ provided the soundtrack to everyone spreading out blankets and cracking open Pimm’s before the real fun stuff began. The Film 4 Summer Screen season this year features a “shit load of gremlins and a Gosling” and 28,000 people coming together over the fortnight on the cobbles to share a passion for film. As this was a premiere, the screening began with a short speech from director Richard Curtis who spoke of the last outdoor screening he’d attended – Speed – before assuring the audience that About Time was nothing like that. It is the “most personal film [he’d] ever made” about love and family and with a little bit of time-travel thrown in for good measure. In true RC fashion he made everyone fall in love with him with the line: “I know you all have families, and I hope you all have love too.” Before introducing the actors he thanked several people, most notably his partner Emma Freud and God: “God especially, because of the rain thing. God is great: he has a nice son, and with the 10 commandments you only need to stick to about 7 of them.” Clearly he’s funny in real life and not just on paper.

Vanessa Kirby; Tom Hughes; Josh McGuire; Margot Robbie; Tom Hollander; Richard Courdroy; Lindsay Duncan; Bill Nighy; Domhnall Gleeson; Lydia Wilson; Rachel McAdams.

 

About Time tells the story of Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) who at the age of 21 discovers he can travel in time. The night after another unsatisfactory New Year party, Tim's father (Bill Nighy) tells his son that the men in his family have always had the ability to travel through time. Tim can't change history (“you can’t kill Hitler or shag Helen of Troy… unfortunately”), but he can change what happens and has happened in his own life. With his priorities firmly in order, Tim embarks on the difficult task of finding himself a girlfriend. Moving from the Cornwall coast to London to train as a lawyer, Tim finally meets the beautiful but insecure Mary (Rachel McAdams). They fall in love, but an unfortunate time-travel incident means he's never met her at all. Can he right this disastrous wrong and find her again?

It’s a standard Richard Curtis film: unapologetically British, romantic and undeniably a victim of the Marmite-effect in reviews. There’s a hapless male lead, beautiful American, odd-ball family and a “normal” life that’s actually pretty good. If you’re not a fan then I’d give it a wide berth, but personally I enjoyed the film. It’s not perfect (really though, what film is?) but it does exactly what it says on the tin. I laughed; I cried; I cringed at Tim’s mistakes and wanted to cheer when he finally got things right.

[Image sourced from empireonline.com]

Gleeson has confidently taken the reins from Hugh Grant in the form of Richard Curtis’s awkward male British lead desperate to get girls to like him. He fares well, filling large floppy haired shoes with ease, and he has excellent comedic timing. His relationship with McAdams is adorable, if not a little strange: each time something doesn’t quite go to plan he just redoes it, no questions asked. Surely lacking was some sort of character development on Curtis’s part – there must be some consequence to Tim’s actions or something he must have to learn to improve as a man and use his time-travelling skills for the better. Unfortunately, evidently not… For this reason alone I was a little disappointed, as life just seemed a little too easy for Tim. It’s hard to really feel for someone who’s most pressing problem in life is that he can’t get a girlfriend.

I went into the film thinking the main focus would be solely that of the will-they/won’t-they relationship of Tim and Mary, and was concerned that as a result About Time would fall into the tested trap of the romantic comedy. Luckily, although it provides the driving force it is the beautifully crafted father-son relationship that forms the beating heart of the entire film. Nighy and Gleeson were the perfect pair, creating a genuinely touching and sentimental relationship that well and truly made up for the troubling time-travelling plot points. Nighy really is a national treasure: is there anything he can’t do?

[Image sourced from cinebum.eu]

There were laughs aplenty, however I wasn’t expecting to spend the last twenty minutes of the film with a lump in my throat and suffering the embarrassment of crying on a picnic blanket in an 18th century courtyard. The main comfort was the fact that a significant proportion of the 2000 people around me were sniffing in solidarity too. So it’s not all bad. I did manage to be swept up in the story and was surprised at how much a simple love/family/time-travel film affected me, no matter how transparent that objective was throughout the film.

Essentially, minor plot points aside it’s a hilarious, touching and adorable film. It’s not new and exciting and different: this is like a comforting pot of tea or a well-worn jumper, not an exotic cocktail or pair of Louboutins. But often, comfort can be exactly what the doctor ordered.

As with most Richard Curtis films I laughed, I cried, and I came away with the profound realisation that I'm not living my life in the way life is meant to be lived. I'm merely shuffling through one day in order to get to the next. I’m constantly power walking down dull grey streets and running up and down escalators and not taking the time to appreciate the small things. I’m well and truly guilty of getting irrationally angry when the tube's delayed and cursing the rain when I've forgotten my umbrella. Instead I should be skipping and smiling and rejoicing, because if Richard Curtis has taught me anything it's that life short and meant for living. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to start talking to people on the tube: let's not go too far after all...