The title certainly sounds big and bold. And, the popular stars, Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie, can be considered beautiful. And the question is how this all comes together.
While it can be labelled as a romantic comedy, the film is also an imaginative fantasy, and the clue is given in the tag for the advertising: relive the past, change the future.
The initial focus is on David, in New York, American mother, Irish father, Irish accent. He has to drive to the wedding of a friend. And, almost immediately, the storytelling takes on the touch of the surreal. When he goes to rent a car, there is a difficult door to open, a vast open space, two cars, two strange characters at the desk: The Mechanic (and it takes a while to recognise this white-haired gentleman as Kevin Kline) and The Cashier, the immediately recognisable Phoebe Waller-Bridge, her English strangely German-accented. David goes through some puzzling tests, like an audition, but eventually gets the car which has an interactive local guide.
Then, at the wedding, there is Sara, up-front but this covering some diffidence. They meet, don’t exactly click, but then find that The Mechanic and The Cashier have contrived to bring them together. And so the journey begins.
The way that they relive the past is going through a strange set of doors, many of them out in the woods. David goes to a lighthouse that was a refuge in his past, relives an episode from his school days. Sarah goes through a door and enters a museum that she frequented with her mother, as well as a visit to her mother dying in hospital. A moving sequence is where David encounters his father at the time of his birth – and then later has to identify as his father reaching out to his younger self. And, there are several other episodes with the two encountering each other.
In fact, it would be interesting to hear a marriage counsellor or a therapist and their response to this film, because in many ways, the reliving in the past to change the future means a lot of discussion, a lot of self-reflection, a lot of challenges to honesty about the self, experiences to appreciate the influence of parents, discover what is special about themselves.
Because of the status and the ages of the two stars, this is a film to appeal to a middle-aged audience rather than a younger audience. And it will give older audiences their opportunity to think about reliving their past and its effect on their present and future.
There is quite some beautiful American country scenery. Margot Robbie has proven that she has quite some charm on screen. But, it is very interesting to see Colin Farrell in this role, a great number of close-ups and the fact that throughout the film he is communicating a great deal through his intense facial performance. And to this extent, he is more endearing to the audience than Margot Robbie.
Audiences who surrender to the film’s imagination, will enjoy it and appreciate an occasion for reflection. But, there is the danger with this kind of film that audiences in a hurry will not have the patience to slow down and surrender to it.
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