Timestalker

Alice Lowe did virtually everything in this quirky drama about the immortal "Agnes" who travels through time desperate to reunite with an highwayman (Aneurin Bernard) who robbed her sometime in the 17th century. Snag is - every time she manages to engineer a scenario when they can be together, she ends up dead! We reset, and moving steadily through time we encounter her in different guises and him likewise evolving, ultimately into a jaded rock star. Along the way, she is guided by the omnipresent "Scipio" (Jacob Anderson) who plays a role similar to one of Shakespeare's fools, by her maid/best pal "Meg" (Tanya Reynolds) and slightly bonkers husband (Nick Frost) as loads of daft adventures ensue. It's a sort of hybrid of Peter Greenaway meets Terry Gilliam this, with shades of "Monty Python" as the humour has a slapstick goriness to it that starts off quite funny but all too quickly runs out of steam. Indeed, this really is the problem with this, It's more of a short story that's been drawn out to fill ninety minutes. Once the point has been made and the joke established, it seems content just to shift the timeline and then tell us a similar story all over again. I did like the premiss, and there's no doubt that Lowe does have some good comedy timing at the start as her hate-hate rapport with her rakish husband is demonstrated, but Bernard was always more about his smile than his skill and sadly the whole thing just faded away. Zach Wyatt is quite entertaining as the dubious tarot reader but in the end it's too close to a rather weak farce for me.

Based on an interesting and fun premise, the idea of love/infatuation transcending time and multiple lives, this movie is enjoyable and benefits from some good performances. It is let down by its lack of budget and often looks and feels like a film. The decision to set the latter part in New York seems a strange one as the scenery never looks or feels like New York and ends up being a bit jarring.

Alice Lowe gives a strong performance as the lead character trying to understand and navigate the memories of multiple lives and her obsession with a man who never seems to have any idea who she is.

If you enjoyed Lowe's previous movies, Sightseers and Prevenge, you'll enjoy this.

Quirky Brit dark-comedienne Alice Lowe follows her fine writer / director debut "Prevenge" (after previously co-writing "Sightseers") with the ambitious "Timestalker" whose quirkiness disappointingly so out-weighs its dark comedy that it flops, badly. She plays various re-incarnated ladies over several different centuries whose only similarity seems to be that while plagued by Nick Frost their obsessive love for Aeurin Barnard causes their death (as witnessed by Jacob Anderson & Tanya Reynolds). The ultimate point is perhaps known only to Lowe, which may not've mattered if the film was funny... but no it's not - so this is sadly a low for Lowe.

Agnes (Alice Lowe) keeps falling for the wrong guy and getting killed for it. She leaps into another life in another time and repeats the process over again. Alice Lowe is the writer, director, and star of this movie. Obviously, this is her baby and it is a fun, ridiculous, mind-bending, time-jumping baby. It is a nice fanciful sarcastic take on love or failed love. I love Alice Lowe's pitiful look when bad things start happening to her. I would like more physical comedy to put this over the top. This movie may as well go completely ridiculous. This could have gone even further and get legendary.

Agnes (Alice Lowe) has lived many lives, in 1680s Scotland, in 1790s England, in 1840s Britain, in 1980s New York, and more. And in every life, she meets the one man (Aneurin Barnard) whom she is destined to be with - but just as they are meeting, something dreadful happens and she dies. Until she meets him again in the next life, that is....

Alice Lowe wrote, directed and stars in this film, which is quite funny and which has lovely supporting characters played by Jacob Anderson, Nick Frost and Tanya Reynolds, who like Agnes all have just one name throughout the film (unlike the love of her life who goes by different names in each incarnation). You might think the premise would get a bit repetitive over time, and it does, but there are enough differences of setting and methods of living and/or dying that those repetitions didn't bother me. If you believe in reincarnation and love as destiny, then this movie is for you; if you don't, you'll understand why the film is titled as it is. Recommended.