First Hit: This was an OK film with some touching moments but it also consisted of inadequate directing and poor makeup choices for the main character when he was to represent different ages.
The immediate attraction to this film is two beautiful characters being in love.
The chemistry between Eric Bana as Henry DeTamble and Rachel McAdams as Clare Abshire is obvious and made me a believer that they could carry the love between them through time.
The stuff that didn’t make this film work was mostly around the representation of Bana’s age sequencing. It was done sloppily. The oldest Henry, with the most gray hair, was at his wedding although we actually move to scenes years later where he looks younger than he did the moment he got married (not the moment of the first dance because he was age correct in that scene).
Films which have a lot of age dependent scenes as part of the plot (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” for one) require lots of makeup, extraordinary acting and thoughtful / mindful direction to make them believable.
This film lacked all three. I loved the scenes of Henry when he would see his mother (played by Michelle Nolden) and I enjoyed watching his father (played by Arliss Howard) teaching his granddaughter the violin. These were very touching and heartfelt.
The film doesn’t try to make perfect sense as to why Henry can travel time or how this gene suddenly becomes active at the moment of an accident, but I really didn’t expect it to do so.
Bana was good as Henry as both the guy who is a loving husband and the guy who is lost and doesn't have an ordered and sequenced life. McAdams is solid and holds the character true to her feelings and actions. I especially loved her having an affair with her husband in a different time period, I thought that well played out and her sharing this to the current Henry was well played and expressed. I was very impressed with both Tatum McCann and Hailey McCann who played Albam, Clare and Henry's daughter, at ages 4 and 9 respectively.
Overall: A predictable love story which was adequately acted and directed while acknowledging it is a complicated story to tell.