Time Lovers

A boy-genius meets the love of his life. A few months later they have split up - cue the time machine to get her back.

At first glance I knew I had definitely been here before - but I was wrong.

On the surface you can enjoy this as a very simple, quaint romance with the odd joke thrown in.

The sci-fi element of this is kept on the down low. There are no annoying sequences about paradoxes, dichotomies or accidentally shagging your own parents here. This is all about the relationships of the three main characters and the choices we make in life.

Straight away the leads do not look like they are an actual couple and I assumed their chemistry would be garbage.

This, however, is one of the strengths of the film and what sets it apart.

This will really resonate with anyone who (like me) has gone out with someone who is clearly hotter and more vivacious than themselves. There was something painfully familiar seeing the lead character snowballing trivial disagreements in to major issues due to a lack-of-confidence, fear and jealousy. Then of course the harder he tries to fix things the more damage he causes.

The characters are great in this; they are so believable they almost feel like people from my actual past. The story is simple but non-judgmental - I found myself rooting for all parties involved all the time.

Despite having some depth this remains a nice light watch, there is no nudity, violence, political agendas, and it won't stretch your brains or emotions too far either.

An excellent watch!

Some scenes were expected but I still enjoyed the movie. Sophie's American accent is also getting better. I enjoyed listening to her pronunciations. Lol. Asa has always been a good actor and Skyler's humor added a spice in the movie.

I think that in this movie, you can feel engaged in the characters (like in Stillman) in the decisions sometimes, like creating a space and imagine, if I do this and this it will be so different, and sometimes a feel like the decisions made by Stillman was so exaggerated. But in the other hand, I felt that this movie was ENJOYABLE and kinda CUTE to be honest. It is a Great movie for teenagers and specially for those who are in a relationship.

Stillman (Asa Butterfield) is a physics genius who's girlfriend Debbie (Sophie Turner) breaks up with him and she says that it's because she is unhappy. So he creates a time machine to go back and change all the times that he made her unhappy, with the help of his friend Evan (Skyler Gisondo).

What I loved about this movie was that it doesn't take itself to seriously and there were some genuine laugh-out-loud and enjoyable moments. The acting was top notch from all three main characters. The chemistry between the struggling couple is electric and very relatable and the banter and bond between the two friends is very amusing.

But that said the writer and director (Andrew Bowler) did a brilliant job of understanding the possible consequences of changing the past and creating a "perfect" life. His message is that if we don't make mistakes and struggle in life then we don't learn or grow. We would be stuck in time, never moving forward which is expressed in a romantic "boy meets girl" rather than dramatic "save the universe" way, which I thought was a breath of fresh air.

This movie visualises a situation I for one have thought about, where often someone is the Yin to our Yang and opposites attract at first but over time one of you realises that you're growing a part. When you look back on the relationship after it has ended, your life seems to be over and it's easy to wish you could have a do-over. But that isn't how life works, we're meant to hurt, struggle, make mistakes and most of all learn from them. All so that when someone does come along who seems perfect for us we don't make the same mistakes we did in the past.

I'm a sucker for time travel movies and trying to fix what went wrong. Add a romance to that and I'm often a bigger sucker.

This movie is okay. It's sweet and silly and sometimes a bit ludicrous, but above-average fun.

I think that the biggest surprise and the movie's saving grace is Skyler Gisondo as Evan. I've never seen him before, but his work here is remarkable. He takes what could have been a thankless, ridiculous second banana role and arguably makes the whole film so much more than it would be without him.

If you watch this movie just to see what Skyler does with his part, and think about - and this is apropos for a time travel movie - the acting choices he could have made, or what another lesser actor might have done with the role, you won't be sorry.