About Time 2013

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: You may as well check your cynicism at the door, because Curtis & Co. are going to find a way to trample all over it - adorably. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: The film left me feeling simultaneously amused and used. Could Richard Curtis go back in time and make a slightly less strenuously adorable movie? Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: About Time is like a sermon that starts with a few good jokes and ends with tremulous exhortations to live, live. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: For all its glutinous cuteness, damn if "About Time" doesn't sneak up and sock you in the tear ducts. I tried not to fall for it. I failed. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: A pleasant, gentle comedy about learning to love life; about enjoying every moment, even if you have to play it over twice to get it right. Read more

Leslie Felperin, Variety: Gleeson and McAdams have a radiant, believable chemistry that keeps the film aloft, while the other actors glide through effortlessly ... Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: Somehow unsentimental in his sentimentality, Nighy makes shopworn carpe diem platitudes sound like fresh wisdom. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Nighy makes it all OK, or mostly. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: Time travel can be a nifty device for stirring and complicating romantic drama. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Writer-director Richard Curtis (Love Actually) papers over any disturbing subtext with wall-to-wall cuteness -- even the sex jokes sound as if they were lifted from greeting cards. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Enjoy the love in your life, and don't squander it: That's all Curtis is selling here, really. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Perhaps, like me, you find the oeuvre of British writer-director Richard Curtis a bit -- how shall I put it -- twee? Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The script is so willy-nilly about the complexities of the issues it introduces that it winds up collapsing. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Gleeson and McAdams make a touching, lifelike couple, but by the time the movie starts telling us to live each day as if we were going back and doing it all over again, you may feel Curtis has mistaken hokum for wisdom. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, Film.com: There won't be a dry eye in the house, but the tears will be unearned. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Even in a work of science fiction like this, Gleeson seems beyond real. All those foam-faces being made in the dark? They're for him. Read more

Stephen Dalton, Hollywood Reporter: There are just enough laugh-out-loud moments here to excuse the lurches into shameless, tear-jerking sentimentality. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: About Time does not waste time having its characters try to significantly alter the future by killing Hitler or evil cyborgs. It prefers to blindside you with sentimentality and see how that goes. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: It's all so perfect and sparkly that Curtis would rather not break the mood with drama or plot. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: Some people will revel in this warm front of innocence; others will reach for their Voltaire. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: A mostly charming romance, leavened by deft comedy, interesting sidelights (there are a few wonderful jabs at the world of the British theater) and a lovely cast. Read more

Joel Arnold, NPR: The film takes few of the liberties you'd expect from its genre, and it conforms to an internal logic throughout. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: By the time you get home from the multiplex, it will be as if the whole thing never happened. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: The latest sprawling romcom/family drama from Richard Curtis way outlasts its charm. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: With more attention to detail, this could have worked, but the time travel aspects are so badly executed that the movie as a whole falters and eventually rips apart at the seams. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Dragged down by whimsy and sentiment, About Time feels like it weighs a ton. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It raises the inherent implausibility of the rom-com narrative to a new level. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: For moviegoers who can't fathom any situation worth $10.50 to witness everlasting love, steer clear of "About Time." But the drama offers something for almost everyone else ... Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: There's a lot of comic and fantasy potential here, but much of it gets squandered. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: A soap opera of babies, poignant moments, minor crises, and lessons about savouring each day. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: It likely won't top the box office of such previous Curtis enchantments as Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral, but like most soppy encounters, it'll do. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Beautiful to look at, with its seaside estates and its rain-soaked weddings and besotted characters being lovely to one another, but it's a treacly greeting card coming from someone whose love letters used to have a little more bite. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: In Curtis's hands, time travel is really a way of learning how to live a better life. (Strangely, though, we're not meant to think there's anything creepy about playing puppetmaster with people's lives.) Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: In a word: Ugh. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: A time-travel rom-com with more than romance and comedy on its mind. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: To get to the parts that are un-terrible, you have to suffer through the most idiotic plot developments and ill-defined characters imaginable. Read more