From Time to Time

Julian Fellowes has assembled quite a stellar cast here for this rather charming, if formulaic, ghost story set in an English stately home. The young "Tolly" (Alex Etel) comes to live with his aristocratic grandmother "Mrs Oldknow" (Dame Maggie Smith) - who is having to think carefully about remaining in their fire-damaged family home. Once in situ, the young man discovers that he is able to revisit a time in the house's history when things were different, and there were big secrets being kept. Soon he is embroiled in trying to alter history saving those in both timelines before it is too late. To be fair, the story is pretty derivative, but it looks good - the costume and set designers have fun with the two periods of history - and there are plenty of familiar faces - Timothy Spall, a fine effort from Pauline Collins and a few brief cameos from Hugh Bonneville to keep this amiable story bubbling along nicely for ninety minutes. It's not likely a film you will recall seeing for long afterwards, but it has a gentle charm to it and the young Etel works well with his more illustrious co-stars to create a feel-good film that is worth watching.

I have found that movies with Timothy Spall or Maggie Smith in them are worth watching, and this movie has both of them. I also like Pauline Collins since her role way back in the Jurassic era playing in No Honestly. I am not into the supernatural or ghost movies, so I don't know what is normal, but it seems like this script takes a few liberties by having the ghosts visible or not visible inconsistently as the story moves on, but the writers seems to realize that as one of the characters even comments on it. And overall it works so I overlooked it with ease. Oh and did I mention Hugh Bonneville is in it, and very good, as you'd expect. The ending was rather predictable to me, but I write novels so perhaps that was why I foresaw the plot twists. I like that Tolly, the teenage the lad who is main character, shows some growth as a person due to his experiences. I don't expect to feel the urge to watch the movie again, but neither do I regret my time spent watching it.