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.
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...
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