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From the love/hate setup and the must-dump boyfriend to the kooky mate and frantic finale this well-crafted love story hits all the classic romcom beats, just don’t expect fireworks

Based on Sophie Cousens’ novel of the same name, and adapted for the screen by the author, this opens with a twinkly tourism-office-style visit-London-for-the-festive-season montage that lets us know from the off that the film will be playing by 1990s romcom rules. You know the sort of thing: a declaration of love delivered against a pressing deadline ideally involving a change of location. As This Time Next year progresses, it quickly becomes apparent that said rules have been thoroughly studied, to mostly satisfying effect, as from the get-go the story hits the expected beats. You’ve got heroine Minnie’s initial antagonism towards her love-match Quinn, a loser boyfriend who must first be seen through and ditched, and of...

After losing more than 75 pounds for Season 4 of “Stranger Things,” in which his character Jim Hopper was wasting away in a Russian gulag, David Harbour had one thing on his mind.

“As soon as we finished my last shirtless scene, I sent my assistant to this great pasta place for lasagna,” Harbour recalls. “It only came in trays, so I gave her a little section and then I just took the whole tray and dove in like a maniac.”

After battling starvation, Soviet guards and a Demogorgon in the hit Netflix series, Harbour is currently facing some truly scary demons — family. The actor is appearing in Theresa Rebeck’s latest play, “Mad House,” at the Ambassadors Theatre in London, running through Sept. 4. Eight shows a week, Harbour storms and thunders as Michael, a schizophrenic man who is released from a mental institution and thrown into equally harrowing conditions as he...