About Time

[Warning: if you have not seen this movie, this post contains spoilers]

About Time is a unique time travel movie because it conceives of and understands time travelling in a new way, at least compared to most other things I've seen.

For starters, these men can't go to any time and place whether it be past, present, or future. Instead they can only go back and relive events in their own lives. Following the classic time travel rules, changing key events can alter things dramatically in the future, and this frequently leaves the main character at a crossroads between preventing tragedies in his own life and changing his children. Births are important events, and we learn that travelling beyond that will inevitably cause a different child to be born. But otherwise, small changes don't always have to have big consequences. Time tends to work itself out.

Time travel ends up being used, not for altering the past, but for reliving it. The main character, Tim, uses his powers to visit his deceased father. And he learns that his father decided that the best way to use all of his powers was to live every day twice, in order to do it better, to stay positive because he already knows what will come and that it is not as bad as it first seemed in the moment. The movie could just stop here and leave us with this unique and encouraging view of time travel.

But the film goes one step further by showing us that time travel is not even needed. Tim's final piece of narration explains that he does not use his powers like his father. Instead, he chooses to live each day as though he is already living it over again. He changes his attitude and outlook on life based on his experiences with time travel, and he is able to enjoy life more than he ever did when he could shape it and change it as he pleased.

So often time travel becomes dangerous or negative, but About Time makes it mostly positive while still arguing that it is unnecessary. Tim illustrates the way that we should all learn to accept that things don't always go our way and to stay positive instead of trying to control every little aspects of our lives. And if we have the right attitude, we will see that we don't need everything to go our way in order to be happy.