Movie Review: Babylon (2022)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Damien Chazelle  

Starring: Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Diego Calva, Tobey Maguire  

Running Time: 189 minutes  

Synopsis: In Hollywood of 1926, stars and wannabes attend a huge sex, drugs, and music party at a studio head's mansion. Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) is the era's biggest star, Nellie LaRoy (Margo Robbie) is a fame-seeking nobody, and Manny Tores (Diego Calva) is a studio fixer desperate to be involved in moviemaking. Also present are band trumpeter Sidney Palmer, gossip writer Elinor St. John (Jean Smart) and exotic singer Lady Fay Zhu. The next day Manny gets his first on-set experiences and Nellie stumbles into stardom, unleashing all her addictions. All the industry norms are disrupted by the arrival of sound. Through the turmoil, Manny maintains a crush on Nellie, while Conrad frequently swaps wives but his career suffers as the public taste evolves.

What Works Well: Writer and director Damien Chazelle delivers a warts-and-all three hour epic vision of excess as a young town attracts ambition, talent, and crime. The characters are inspired by actual people, Jack Conrad and Nellie LaRoy roughly approximating John Gilbert and Clara Bow respectively. Brad Pitt is in his comfort zone as the residing superstar and Margot Robbie finds the unhinged bravura of a stardom-or-bust attitude, and they contribute to an exhilarating first hour packed with madcap energy, humour, and incidental death. The second hour is less impactful but still strong, Conrad and Nellie at their zenith suddenly encountering the hazards of new technology.

What Does Not Work As Well: The third hour unravels into aimlessness and an unworthy lovers-on-the-run subplot. Tobey Maguire makes an appearance as a crime lord, and triggers a useless detour to a dungeon of freakish debauchery. It all ends in a climax reaching for Singin' In The Rain-inspired nostalgia but falling embarrassingly short.

Conclusion: Two hours of excellence compromised by excessive bloat.



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Movie Review: Barbie (2023)

Genre: Satirical Comedy Musical

Director: Greta Gerwig

Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Kate McKinnon, Will Ferrell

Running Time: 114 minutes

Synopsis: Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives in Barbieland, an idyllic matriarchy where the resident Barbies believe they have solved all of women's problems. Ken (Ryan Gosling) and the other men play subsidiary roles, mostly as beach decoration. When Barbie suddenly starts thinking about death and her feet turn flat, Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) advises a trip to the real world to find her troubled owner. Barbie and Ken are shocked to discover that Los Angeles is a patriarchy, and Ken uses his awakening to transform Barbieland. Meanwhile Barbie learns about real women from the mother-daughter pair of Gloria (America Ferrera) and Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt).

What Works Well: For a movie about an iconic doll coveted by pre-teens, the script (by director Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach) is ambitious: snide comments about feminism, the male-female power imbalance (in all directions), ditzyness, faux intellectualism, and performative enlightenment pepper Barbie's adventure. The humour is steady and harmless, while the production design animates a doll's vivid world with imaginative plastic. Extra points for an opening inspired by a classic, and Helen Mirren's narration. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The none-too-serious throw-everything-at-the-wall attitude is suitable for child attention spans, but in the search for humanity behind symbolism, not much sticks beyond the obvious lecturing about impossible expectations placed on women. Most of the musical interludes smack of padding, as does the would-be intervention of Will Ferrell as the Mattel CEO and his doofus band of men-in-suits. 

Conclusion: As an industrial-scaled marketing machine, nobody is putting Barbie back in a box.



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Movie Review: Amsterdam (2022)

Genre: Crime Dramedy

Director: David O. Russell

Starring: Christian Bale, John David Washington, Margot Robbie, Robert De Niro

Running Time: 134 minutes

Synopsis: In New York City of 1933, lawyer Harold Woodman (John David Washington) and his wartime buddy doctor Burt Berendsen (Christian Bale) help Elizabeth Meekins (Taylor Swift) identify her father's cause of death. Soon Harold and Burt are deemed murder suspects, and have to investigate the Meekens family background to clear their names. They are joined by Valerie (Margot Robbie), a nurse they had befriended in Amsterdam after the Great War. The trio's sleuthing leads to the wealthy Voz family and a nefarious plot to undermine America's democracy.

What Works Well: Loosely inspired by actual events including the Business Plot, Amsterdam boasts magnanimous set designs and a nostalgia-drenched sepia-toned aesthetic. Director and writer David O. Russell finds the best moments in an unlikely friendship between two veterans and the nurse who patched them both up.

What Does Not Work As Well: The lazy plot takes a long time to define itself and succumbs to endless opportunities for sideways drift. The pacing is cluttered with half-developed ideas and underdeveloped characters propped-up by over-narration. The running time is obese, and the cast members (with a recognizable face in almost every role) never shake the impression they are playing dress-up and about to wink at the camera.

Conclusion: Graceful visuals wasted on laborious storytelling.



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Movie Review: Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood (2019)

A comedy-drama, Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood lovingly recreates a slice of time and place but is also inexcusably flabby and lacking in narrative purpose.

In Hollywood of 1969, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is struggling to find acting work. He used to be a television western series star working with his best friend and stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), but Rick failed in his attempted transition to big-screen roles. Now he is reduced to guest-starring on television shows, although agent Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino) offers him the chance to star in Rome-filmed Spaghetti Westerns. Rick is also dealing with the ignominy of losing his driver's licence due a drinking problem, with Cliff now driving him everywhere.

Rick is neighbours with celebrated director Roman Polanski and his wife actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). She is enjoying her burgeoning stardom and spends an afternoon at the movies watching one of her recent films. Meanwhile as Rick shoots his latest television guest role, Cliff stumbles upon the hangout of the creepy Charles Manson cult at the isolated ranch of his old buddy George Spahn (Bruce Dern).

Featuring a series of vignettes rather than a cohesive plot, Quentin Tarantino writes and directs an ode to an era. 1969 is an assassination-weary inflection point as hippie idealism transitions to 1970s cynicism, with the horrors perpetuated by the Manson maniacs bringing death to the heart of Hollywood. Tarantino uses the looming threat of murder as a backdrop, but otherwise is more interested in celebrating the friendship between Rick and Cliff.

Their bond is the heart of the film, two men with their best days behind them and now confronting fading career prospects, but doing it together. Rick has good and bad moments filming the television pilot, both disappointing and surprising himself before taking a crack at the Italian movie industry. Cliff stands by his friend through thick and thin, picking up scraps of work but mostly supporting Rick because he has essentially nothing else to lean on.

Rick's struggle to accept his career trajectory is an intermittent theme. His drinking and denial get in the way of any positive initiative for transformation, although sparks of pride and talent point to a potential path towards redefinition.

The Sharon Tate chapter stands alone, and is a bittersweet and mostly dialogue-free tribute to an actress delighted by the prospect of her own success. The Manson cult menace intrudes onto both storylines starting with Cliff's visit to the Spahn Movie Ranch, the film's best scene featuring the stuntman infiltrating a twilight zone occupied by lost souls.

Tarantino prolongs the essentially plotless film to a wholly unnecessary 161 minutes. Most scenes are artificially stretched prompting a dance with tedium, and many sequences (hello Bruce Lee and Steve McQueen) are quite pointless. The quest for grandeur is misguided and frequently deflates the film's momentum.

Visually the film is drenched in stark California sunlight, and the production design is excellent in recreating Los Angeles circa 1969 without relying on digital gimmicks. DiCaprio, Pitt and Robbie occupy their roles with relaxed confidence.

The subversive climax features the usual Tarantino outburst of violence mixed with a mean streak of humour, here slightly less bloody than usual but still featuring dollops of gore. Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood expresses a genuine love for the town where movies live, but the good intentions suffer from fundamental narrative fragmentation and plenty of egotistical oversaturation.

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Movie Review: Bombshell (2019)

A drama based on the true story of women fighting back against a lecherous media boss, Bombshell features excellent performances but a fragmented narrative.

In 2015 Fox News television star anchor Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) becomes a household name for all the wrong reasons when she tangles with Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump. Meanwhile afternoon show host Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) is collecting evidence and planning to sue Fox News CEO Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) for sexual harassment after he demotes her to a less favourable viewing spot for refusing his advances.

Young, attractive and ambitious Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie) leaves Carlson's team to join the higher profile Bill O'Reilly show, and soon catches Ailes' eye. He subjects her to humiliating harassment with a promise of career advancement. Carlson is finally fired and launches her lawsuit, throwing the network into turmoil. Her legal team is desperate for other women to step forward and share their harassment stories, with Megyn's refusal to publicly support Ailes causing shockwaves.

Roger Ailes' dismissal was an early milestone just in advance of the #metoo era, and Bombshell goes inside the inner sanctum of Fox News to recreate events leading up to his downfall. Writer Charles Randolph and director Jay Roach focus on the courage of three women, real-life anchors Kelly and Carlson, with Kayla representing an amalgamation of other employees.

The film is polished, inspiring and disjointed. The three women barely share any screen time together, their struggles representing loosely connected but quite separate chapters. Their stories ultimately converge to help shine a light on the truth, but this power in numbers remains primarily off-screen.

While Carlson's lawsuit was the trigger event leading to Ailes downfall, her story gets the least amount of screen time, and Kidman is often reduced to a secondary presence. In contrast Charlize Theron is most prominent and coldly efficient as Kelly. Her early clash with Donald Trump and subsequent media storm was an early sign of the candidate's unorthodox and unfiltered approach, but is ultimately tangential to Bombshell's central theme. Theron shines late in the film, as the implications of revealing (or not) Kelly's truth start to weigh on her shoulders.

Kayla depicts every enthusiastic young woman caught in shark-infested waters without a sturdy raft. With Margot Robbie in sensational form, she emerges as the heart and soul of the film, the next generation of women paying the price for debauchers maintaining their hold on power for far too long.

Roach paints a vivid picture of rampant sexism at Fox News, where women were routinely objectified and pressured into wearing leg-revealing outfits. Rumours of "leg cameras", transparent anchor tables as a tactic to attract gawking viewers, and private elevators to Ailes' office swirled through the hallways.

The downfall of men who sexually exploited women was an overdue workplace revolution, and Bombshell is a genuine if not cinematically spectacular salute to the brave women who helped make it happen.

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Movie Review: Mary Queen Of Scots (2018)

A historical drama, Mary Queen Of Scots explores the reign of Mary Stuart and her rivalry with England's Queen Elizabeth.

A prologue shows Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan), known as Mary Queen of Scots, being marched to her death by beheading in 1587. In flashback to 1561, Mary returns to Scotland from France after the death of her first husband, and claims her rightful throne. Her half-brother the Earl of Moray (James McArdle) was acting as Regent and reluctantly makes way. Protestant leaders are more vocally opposed to Mary's rule, viewing her ties to Catholicism and the Pope with suspicion.

Mary also has a strong claim to the throne of England, but through correspondence signals her willingness to cooperate with the reigning Queen Elizabeth (Margot Robbie) as long as Elizabeth names Mary as her successor. The unmarried and barren Elizabeth is wary of Mary's ambition and threat from any future heirs. Elizabeth attempts to have Mary wed the English Robert Dudley (Joe Alwyn), who is under Elizabeth's control. Mary refuses and marries another Englishman, Lord Darnley (Jack Lowden), but the union triggers further plots against her rule.

Covering ground previously filmed in 1971 with Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson, the 2018 version is visually satisfying and more brazenly invades Mary's bedroom and inner sanctum, but otherwise offers a muddled narrative. Directed by Josie Rourke from a Beau Willimon script, the film takes the usual number of liberties with history, including imagining a secret meeting between the two Queens. More troublesome is an unnecessarily deep bow to modern sensibilities by transforming both the Scottish and English courts into bastions of multi-cultural diversity.

But the film's central problem resides in the noble intention of portraying Mary as a benevolent ruler, but then harbouring all the power within the men conspiring around her. The Earl of Moray, Lord Maitland (Ian Hart), Lord Darnley and advisor/musician David Rizzio (Ismael Cruz Córdova) plus another clutch of men surrounding Elizabeth hold all the cards and manipulate events to their liking. Their characters and motivations are reduced to tangential afterthoughts, leaving Mary as a stranded figure buffeted by barely explained intentions.

The one interesting theme ironically emerges in the English court. Elizabeth refuses to consider marriage and refuses to name an heir, thereby protecting her position. Her gradual realization that Mary's femininity and fertility contribute greatly to her weakness and downfall is a reaffirmation of women's weakened status at the time, even when bestowed with the title of monarchs.

Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie both occupy their roles with conviction. Ronan in particular thrives in portraying a young Queen, not yet 19 years old when she ascended to the throne, caught between the playfulness of a young adult and the responsibilities of ruling. However, the script offers few standout moments or memorable highlights for either actress to truly shine.

Mary Queen Of Scots is competently staged, but also caught between queens on the throne and kingmakers in the shadows.

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Movie Review: The Legend Of Tarzan (2016)

An adventure film, The Legend Of Tarzan tries to breathe life into the fabled character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs but gets trampled by a dull script riding an overabundance of computer-created beasts.

In the late 1880s, envoy Léon Rom (Christoph Waltz) is dispatched by the near-bankrupt Belgian King Leopold to secure the diamond treasures of the Congo. Rom strikes a deal with local Chief Mbonga (Djimon Hounsou): in exchange for the diamonds Rom will capture Tarzan and hand him to Mbonga.

Tarzan is John Clayton III (Alexander Skarsgård), the Baron of Greystoke, currently living in England with his wife Jane (Margot Robbie). He was an infant in Africa when his father was killed and John was raised by apes before meeting Jane and being rescued as a young man. He has phenomenal abilities to communicate with wild animals and travel at lightning speed through the jungle.

Falling for Rom's arranged ruse, John travels back to the Congo with Jane and American veteran George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson), who is investigating slavery. Rom and his soldiers catch up with them but capture Jane instead of John. With the help of George and local tribesmen, John becomes Tarzan again and has to rescue his wife and stop Rom before he gets his evil hands on untold riches.

Directed by David Yates, The Legend Of Tarzan is a limp attempt to jump-start a franchise in an era already drowning in superheros. Despite adopting a welcome grim and irony-free tone, the film's plot is one long and boring chase, as Tarzan, George and their buddies trudge through the jungle chasing Rom's slow boat to nowhere. The pacing is laborious, and the editing often truncates scenes at odd moments, not that any of it matters.

The film relies heavily on CGI creatures, and for fans of animals created from pixels, they are all here, with a wondrous but artificially created African species appearing at the rate of one every eight minutes or so: lions, hippos, crocodiles, ostriches, elephants, wildebeests and of course lots and lots of apes all make their compulsory appearances, often for no narrative reason whatsoever.

Elsewhere Alexander Skarsgård takes off his shirt frequently to expose a chiseled physique, but is an otherwise humourless central character. Margot Robbie is primarily wasted into an old fashioned damsel in distress role, chained to a railing for most of the film. Samuel L. Jackson is dreadfully miscast as essentially a sidekick, while Christoph Waltz phones in yet another performance as the smarmy villain.

With thin characterizations and a threadbare plot The Legend Of Tarzan is old fashioned in a bad way, and over reliant on unconvincing new technology in an equally bad way.

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The Movies Of Margot Robbie

All movies starring Margot Robbie and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

About Time (2013)

The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013)

Z For Zachariah (2015)

Focus (2015)

The Big Short (2015, cameo, as herself)

The Legend Of Tarzan (2016)

I, Tonya (2017)

Mary Queen Of Scots (2018)

Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood (2019)

Bombshell (2019)

Amsterdam (2022)

Babylon (2022)

Barbie (2023)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: I, Tonya (2017)

A biographical drama comedy set in the world of figure skating, I, Tonya delves beneath the headlines to round out the Tonya Harding story.

Born into a broken white trash home in Portland, Oregon, Harding (Margot Robbie) was raised by her abusive mother LaVona (Allison Janney). Incredibly talented as a figure skater, Tonya quickly establishes herself as a rising star under the guidance of her coach Diane (Julianne Nicholson), but never fits into the sport's wholesome image. At 19 years old she escapes her mother's house by marrying Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), who comes from an equally poor background.

Their relationship is passionate but turbulent and Jeff is quick to resort to physical abuse. Tonya anyway rises through the ranks and makes headlines by becoming the first woman to land a triple axel. She leaves Jeff but returns to him as the Olympic games beckon, but more troublesome is Jeff's friend Shawn (Paul Walter Hauser), a delusional slob who stokes violent schemes, with Tonya's rival Nancy Kerrigan as a potential target.

Written by Steven Rogers and directed by Craig Gillespie, I, Tonya is based on separate prolonged interviews with Harding and Gillooly in which they apparently provided wildly differing accounts about their relationship and the assault on Kerrigan. As such, Gillespie adopts a lighthearted touch to the most controversial chapter in competitive figure skating history. I, Tonya includes the main actors in pretend interviews speaking directly to the camera, plus Robbie intermittently breaking the fourth wall mid-scene to offer commentary snippets to the audience.

The film's attitude and style perfectly suit the unfortunately sordid subject matter. Harding overcoming her upbringing to gatecrash the community of princess performers contains material for an inspirational if standard drama. Her association with Gillooly and by extension Shawn takes the story to another place entirely, where the roots of her upbringing latch on to her success and conspire to bring her down from the top of the world. The film takes on Harding's personality: unapologetic, robust, funny, and dogged in pursuit of a story that would have been outlandish as fiction.

I, Tonya easily achieves its prime objective of filling in the gaps behind the headlines. Harding emerges as a product of her environment, her achievements and faults placed into perspective. Her attachment to Gillooly is placed into the context of her upbringing, and her tenacious pursuit of love and adulation is as much about emotional survival as achievement.

Some parts of the film are less effective. The fake interview sessions with Hard Copy reporter Martin Maddox (Bobby Cannavale) add little to the narrative. And once the story arrives at the immediate aftermath of the Kerrigan assault, Gillespie tries to do too much in the run up to the Lillehammer Olympics. Harding's world may have gone crazy in those few weeks, but as a film too much is thrown at the screen and focus is lost.

I, Tonya features two exceptional performances. Margot Robbie (who also co-produced) is sensational as Harding and delivers a multi-faceted performance ranging from victim to champion,  never losing touch with Harding's humanity. And Allison Janney is chilling as she brings to life a mother hardened by poverty and misfortune. LaVona's version of motherhood is vulgar warfare against whoever stands in the way of her daughter's success, including Tonya herself.

Vivid, rancorous and stylish, I, Tonya scores well on both technical merit and presentation.

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Movie Review: Focus (2015)

A drama and romance set in the world of high stakes con artists, Focus is too slick for its own good and never gains emotional traction.

Smooth con man Nicky Spurgeon (Will Smith) easily picks out the inexperienced Jess Barrett (Margot Robbie) as she tries to pull off a clumsy sting. She insists on shadowing him to hone her skills and tracks him down to New Orleans, where she joins his crew as they work the crowds ahead of a big football game. Nicky and Jess become a pair, and after clearing over a million dollars from swindles in one week, Nicky matches wits with the extremely wealthy Liyuan Tse (B.D. Wong) in a high stakes betting duel.

At the end of the New Orleans trip the relationship between Nicky and Jess ends abruptly. Three years later in Buenos Aires, Nicky is planning an elaborate con job with wealthy motor racing team owner Rafael Garriga (Rodrigo Santoro). But Nicky is stunned to again bump into Jess, who is now Rafael's girlfriend. Nicky is torn between reigniting a romance with Jess and fulfilling the con, while Rafael's head of security Owens (Gerald McRaney) grows increasingly suspicious of Nicky's motives.

Co-directed and co-written by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, Focus looks sharp and exudes a certain amount of appealing cool. The pacing is brisk, the cinematography rich and Will Smith and Margot Robbie make for an elegant couple.

But that's about all there is to enjoy in Focus. The film is too eager to portray Nicky as the king of the ultimate con, always several steps ahead of everyone around him. But without delving into the depth of his character he remains a superficial presence, with every one of his actions likely to be not what it seems. The film defaults to an exercise of guessing what the next game is rather than investing in any actual onscreen romance or drama. Nicky cannot be trusted in anything he says or does, so there is no value to be gained in believing any of his romantic overtures or spoken words.

Ficarra and Requa also push the envelope too far. The impromptu gambling joust with Liyuan Tse crosses the line into ridiculous territory, while the final con in Buenos Aires is both poorly defined - something silly about peddling secret algorithms that make racing cars go faster - and ponderously executed with an absurd variation on an old trick.

Focus has a few enjoyable moments mingling among crooked tricksters, but is mostly a frustratingly shallow exercise.

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Movie Review: Z For Zachariah (2015)

A post-apocalyptic drama, Z For Zachariah explores the quiet dynamics between three survivors.

An unspecified event has wiped out most of humanity from the face of the earth. Somewhere in the southern United States, Ann Burden (Margot Robbie), a resilient young woman, survives on her own in a small lush valley mysteriously spared from the ravages of radiation. One day she stumbles upon fellow survivor John Loomis (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and nurses him back to health. John helps Ann with her farming efforts, and develops a plan to generate hydroelectric power from a contaminated waterfall.

Ann was brought up in a deeply religious household while John is more of a non-believer, but they get along and grow close. Their domestic bliss is disrupted when Caleb (Chris Pine), another survivor, walks into their valley. Ann is welcoming, John is suspicious, and gradually sexual tension develops within the triangle of survivors.

Directed by Craig Zobel and written by Nissar Modi as an adaptation of a book by Robert C. O'Brien, Z For Zachariah contains plenty of food for thought. The idea of a small pocket of land remaining untouched while the rest of the landscape is devastated by radiation is an intriguing premise, while the tentative rebuilding of societal relationships between a few people who may be partially carrying the burden of repopulating Earth is rich with possibilities.

Zobel builds the story up slowly, introducing each of the three characters in turn, and only upon their entry into the green valley. Ann is initially the only resident, then she finds John and helps him survive, and then their tiny society is interrupted by Caleb. The communal tensions are reset with every new arrival, as the backdrop of devastation starts to take a backseat to the complications of one becoming two and then three.

Even in a group this small, familiar disruptive issues quickly emerge, including the clash between religion and science, as well as racism, sex and jealousy. John's plan to build a power plant would mean dismantling the small church that holds special meaning for Ann. Caleb and Ann are the same race and maybe closer in age; when they start to get close, John feels emotionally abandoned.

This familiarity of themes also weakens the film's final act. Caleb's introduction tilts the film towards domestic drama with less emphasis on the setting and more focus on the well-worn narrative of envy within triangular tensions.

Margot Robbie remains at the centre of the film throughout, and her accomplished performance holds the drama together during both the survival and emotional scenes. Ejiofor and Pine have less to do but provide able support.

Z For Zachariah creates a new small garden of Eden on a destroyed planet, but not surprisingly, given a chance at a new start the human tendency for mischief and mistrust stays the same.

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Movie Review: About Time (2013)

A fantasy romantic comedy and drama, About Time holds promise but eventually gets itself into a hopeless multi-tonal mess.

In Cornwall, England, Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) turns 21 and is informed by his father (Bill Nighy) that the men in the family have the special ability to change their fortune by traveling back in time to any event they previously were part of. Tim has never been lucky in love, and so uses his newly found gift to try and improve his success rate with women. He is nevertheless unsuccessful in his attempts to woo Charlotte (Margot Robbie), the best friend of his free-spirited sister Kathy, better known as "Kit Kat" (Lydia Wilson).

After moving to London, Tim uses his time travel skills to help his father's friend and abrasive fledgling playwright Harry (Tom Hollander) have a more successful opening night. In the process he almost derails a promising relationship with Mary (Rachel McAdams), but then rescues his chances with her by doing more time traveling. Eventually Tim learns that there are limits to what he can and cannot change, and understands the true value of his special gift.

Directed and written by Richard Curtis, About Time starts with possibilities and an amusing attitude, mixing playful British eccentricity with droll fantasy elements. The early stages of Tim's experimentation with time travel are engaging, his clumsy but dogged pursuits of first Charlotte and then Mary full of understated charm and soft humour.

But unfortunately, About Time effectively unravels in its second half. New restrictions and rules on what is and is not possible with the time travel trick are introduced seemingly at random. Tim zips backwards and forwards in time at dizzying speed, and the film's emotional focus is hopelessly lost.

Curtis seems to have partial material for three different short stories, and he bolts them together inelegantly. After barely featuring as a character, Tim's sister Kit Kat suddenly becomes the new focus of attention, before a second jerky gear shift resets the emphasis on the relationship between Tim and his father. The narrative transitions are mishandled and in the process much of the initial charm evaporates, replaced by clumsy attempts at pathos. The film eventually settles for a couple of bland conclusions contradicting much of what Tim achieved with his hopping across time.

Domhnall Gleeson is passable as the slightly gawkish youth making his way in the world. Rachel McAdams, about 35 at the time of filming, mails in yet another perky but relatively trivial performance.

Well-intentioned but overambitious, About Time gets distracted in too many time zones.

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