SOMEWHERE IN TIME

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STARRING: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer, Teresa Wright, Bill Erwin

1980, 103 Minutes, Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc

Description: Somewhere In Time is the story of a young writer who sacrifices his life in the present to find happiness in the past, where true love awaits him. Young Richard Collier (Christopher Reeves) is approached by an elderly woman who gives him an antique gold watch and who pleads with him to return in time with her. Years later, Richard Collier is overwhelmed by a photograph of a beautiful young woman (Jane Seymour). Another picture of this woman in her later years reveals to him that she is the same woman who had given him a gold watch. Collier then becomes obsessed with returning to 1912 and the beautiful young woman who awaits him there. — Amazon.com

Dismissed as “sentimental” and “mawkish” by most film critics upon its theatrical release back in 1980, this romance starring Superman Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour has however acquired a dedicated following in the years since then thanks to repeat screenings on cable TV.

Slow and uninvolving, it remains a mixed bag at best however. Reeve and Seymour never truly convince as a romantically obsessed couple. The lanky Reeve – fresh from his triumph in the Superman movies – actually seems awkward and unsure of himself in his own body at times. Seymour is simply bland and it is difficult to see what exactly Reeve’s obsessed character exactly sees in her.

The mechanics of the time travel plot are more entertaining than the overly serious romantic plot as Reeve meets up with a much younger version of a character he met earlier, wakes up in someone else’s room and dresses up in a suit ten years out of fashion. The last ten seconds of the movie is however awash in the sort of treacly unbearable Mills & Boons chocolate box kitsch that even Titanic – a similar doomed love affair story which Somewhere in Time has foreshadowed in many ways - would have blanched at.

Still, Somewhere in Time boasts one genuinely moving moment and if you sit it through without moaning, you might wind up scoring with your girlfriend afterwards . . .