We watched About Time, BLISS, DLL and me. It's a funny film, and a nice film. I thought the horizontally laid-back, switched off uncle stole the show, and that Bill Nighy was excellent.
Black and white, shallow thing that I am, because the film involved time travel, I suspended my disbelief. It's a toggle switch in my case. Disbelief: OFF. Eyes down for the main feature.
Infinitely more interesting, nuanced and subtle, DLL has a disbelief dial, which can be set on an infinitely sub-divided analogue scale, so that while, for example, time travel, space travel faster than light (Star Trek), zombies (The Walking Dead), vampires, werewolves and the like are permitted, there have to be definite rules. Rules which will be obeyed.
DLL, in accepting the time travel thing, but needing answers to a long schedule of arising questions, isn't alone:
The Independent says the explanation of time travel is "shockingly inadequate" and that "Curtis keeps leaving questions unanswered – time and time again".
MaryAnn Johanson remarks that there are "arbitrary and inconsistent rules of time travel in aid of creepy romantic manipulation and temporal stalking".
Steve Cummins of The Irish Post refers to Tim travelling backwards and forwards in time when he says the film is "riddled with plot holes".
Megan Gibson writing in Time says: "...sci-fi fans out there likely won’t be able to see [the film's] charms through the gaping time-travel plot-holes".
Critic Matthew Turner points out the "big problem is the unsightly pile-up of plot holes and logic problems".
Kate Erbland of Film School Rejects states "the rules and limitations of Tim's gift aren't exactly hard and fast, and the final third of the film is rife with complications that never get quite explained. Rules that previously applied suddenly don't apply... the time travel rules aren't exactly tight and are occasionally confusing".
Clearly, I'm in the minority, and those loopholes and inconsistencies have affected people's enjoyment of a feel-good film. It is riddled with them, so much so that I wonder whether us guys in the black & white corner might not have had the better time watching it.
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