Rhapsodies

This week I chose romantic comedies involving time travel.

The first film on my list, James Mangold’s  Kate and Leopold, starring Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman, tells the story of Leopold, the historical 3^rd Duke of Albany, and inventor of the elevator ((at least according to the film) (Jackman)) who finds himself in modern day New York after chasing a time traveler off of the Brooklyn Bridge. 

While he is holed up in the Stuart, the time traveler’s, (Liev Schreiber) apartment waiting for the portal to his original time. He meets Stuarts upstair’s neighbor Kate McKay (Ryan) Kate’s an ambitious market researcher with little time for a social life but she quickly opens up to Leopold’s Victorian manners. 

Kate and Leopold was another one of those films I was aware of but never got around to, in fact, that the only reason it tripped my radar at all was that it was the first film I saw with Jackman not doing an action film. 

He and Ryan have good chemistry and I enjoyed how his performance presented his culture shock of trying to make sense of the modern world. Also, looking at this movie as a science fiction fan I enjoyed how Stuart is easily spotted by Leopold in the past because of all of the mistakes he makes. Of course, there were just as many problems. For example, early in the movie, Stuart falls down an empty elevator shaft because Leopold isn’t in the past to invent the elevator, however, New York does not appear to be paralyzed by an “elevator plague”. 

The next film on my list, Richard Curtis’s About Time starring Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, and Bill Nighy. Tim Lake (Gleeson) is an ordinary kid growing up in Cornwall with his very eccentric family. When he turns 21 his father (Nighy) takes him aside to tell him the facts of life. In this case, the fact is that all the male members of the family have the power to travel back in time. 

Tim decides to use these powers to get a girlfriend. After a few false starts, he meets Mary (McAdams). Through trial and error, he tweaks his timeline to create the perfect life with her. 

I don’t know why but this film really didn’t do it for me, which is a shame because it was quite sweet with great performances from everybody. (Nighy is particularly good as Tim’s Father.)