JonathanWalford

The story follows the epic journey of a nine year old boy who, like many children, is transported to the countryside for safety during the war. An hour outside London he jumps off the train to get back to his mother but along the way meets a variety of good and bad characters.

The story takes place during the first week of the Blitz. We know this because a scene depicts locals being denied entry into the tube for shelter - something that was corrected after the first week of constant air raids.

There is a sub-plot about racism that, at times, gets a bit in the way of the main story's period believability - a scene about hanging a blanket in a bomb shelter turns into an unlikely incident for the era. However, there is an overall authentic quality to the film that is mesmerizing. The streets are correctly dressed for 1940 - kerbs painted with white stripes, women wearing low-heeled shoes, St. Pauls is sooty... the look is spot on.

The clothing is excellent throughout but for one cat fur coat being worn by the main character that definitely looks postwar. There is also a dance sequence presumably set in an early 1930s flashback, before the boy was born, with a style of dancing that only developed in the U. S. during the mid-late 1930s.

The scenes depict well known events that happened during the 9 months of the Blitz, including the most horrific events: the Cafe de Paris bomb, and the Balham station flooding. However, the most heart-breaking scenes depict the nightly destruction and daily 'Carry On' struggles most Londoners dealt with.

Everyone moves into an apartment or house and at some point wonders who lived there before them, and what happened on the very spot they are standing - that is what this film is about. From the vantage of one camera angle we witness history through the eyes of different people in different eras - layers of life and death, happiness and sadness, joy and pain in one spot.

Time flows quickly over millions of years in the first seconds of the film, but slows with the introduction of a pre-contact Native American couple. The first colonial building appears a few hundred feet away in the 1760s, and is based on William Franklin's Proprietary House (Governor's mansion) in New Jersey. There are flashes of other eras that take place in front of this house over time - the capitulation of the British in 1783 - a fireworks display in the 1840s, a picnic in the 1890s... But when a house is built across the street in 1900, the camera becomes imbedded in its living room.

The bulk of the film then jots back and forth over the next 120 years. Smaller stories about a pioneering aviator and his suffragette wife who live in the house from c. 1900 to 1920; a Bohemian couple that occupy the home in the late 1930s-early 1940s who invent the La-Z-Boy (which is complete fiction as the chair was invented in 1929 in Michigan); and an affluent black family who briefly live in the house from c. 2016 to 2023. We never see who lives in the house in the 1920s-early 30s.

The majority of the film focusses on three generations of one family who lived in the house from c. 1946 to 2016. They are the most relatable of all the storylines, but also the least interesting. Although it may have lacked a riveting story arc, I never found the film dull due in part to the gimmick of anti-aging AI that make Tom Hanks and Robin Wright age from an almost believable 17 to 77 years of age.

It wasn't a perfect film, some of the green screen acting came across a bit stilted. The costuming was generally excellent, although the mid-thigh mini skirt wedding dress was too early for 1964, shutters on the 1760s house were incorrect, and there were several questionable set decorating issues, from a 'coffee table' in the 1910s to an overstuffed sectional sofa in the 1960s...

Despite these issues - it's a great experiment in the time travel genre, typical of a Robert Zemeckis film.

I appreciate the story, but I hope that the topic can be done again, and better. Matt Bomer's character Hawkins ages between 32 and 66. We know this because he reveals that his first experience was when he was in Grade 11 with his tennis playing friend, and we later see the tennis trophy with the date of 1936, which means he was born c. 1919/20. We assume, but are never told, that Jonathan Bailey's character is about 8-10 years younger. While the actors easily pass for 32 and 22(ish), neither ever looks older than 55 and 45(ish) when they need to be 65 and 55ish in 1986.

The convenience of these two characters being at the centre of every major gay story between 1953 and 1986 (minus the stonewall riot) is a little hard to believe. The story is really the experiences of two generations - those from before, and those after stonewall.

We are supposed to believe these two have a sexual chemistry, but with their fear of being discovered by McCarthy, they make an awful lot of noise in a 1950s rooming house that doesn't allow visitors... I also lost track of when they were together, as they seemed to rekindle their romance every time they met, but ended up in a fight and breaking up almost immediately after...

So, although I appreciated this production, I did feel there was room for improvement. For example, I thought the story would evolve ino Hawkins' son becoming the liberated gay man of the 70s but end up with AIDS... THAT would have made a more salient end..