Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 2009
length 83 minutes
Rod
Director Gareth Carrivick
script Jamie Mathieson
production Neil Peplow ,
Justin Anderson Smith
music James L. Venable
camera John Pardue
cut Chris Blunden ,
Stuart Gazzard
occupation

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (also briefly FAQ About Time Travel ) is a British science fiction - film comedy about three friends who accidentally in a British Pub travel through time . Gareth Carrivick directed the film, produced by BBC Films and HBO Films . It was released in theaters in the United Kingdom and Ireland in April 2009 and premiered on TV in August 2010 on BBC Two .

action

Ray is a nerd and does a lot of science fiction and time travel. Together with his friends, the nerd Toby and the cynic Pete, he works as an assistant in an amusement park. When Ray frightens a group of children with his overly euphoric portrayal of a futuristic soldier in an attraction, he is fired without notice. Ray, Pete and Toby visit a movie together after work, after which they discuss the bad film and the declining quality of Hollywood films in general. Toby tells them that he has a lot of (better) ideas for movies himself, all of which he records in his notebook. However, when he reads one of them, Ray and Pete make fun of it. When he arrives at a pub, Toby writes a letter to Hollywood with recommendations for future film productions. Then he tears the page out of the notebook and leaves it on the table.

Meanwhile, when Ray goes to get beer, he runs into a young woman named Cassie. She tells him that she is a time traveler from the future and that she is excited to meet Ray in person. Ray thinks this is a joke by his friends, but agrees to talk to Cassie. Cassie says she is responsible for fixing time leaks and stopping malicious time travelers trying to change the course of history. They murder famous people at the peak of their careers so that they will never exceed their peak. When Ray returns to Pete and Toby, he tells them about his new acquaintance; however, it turns out that it wasn't a prank by either of them.

Pete leaves them and goes to the pub's toilet. When he comes back, the pub has changed dramatically: the room has been devastated, everyone present is dead. He also finds his own corpse with a full beard. Distraught, he fled to the toilet again. When he ventures out again, everything is back to normal outside. Stunned, he reports to his friends and goes back to the toilet with them to convince them of his experience. When they leave the toilet, they find themselves half an hour in the past. Convinced of the reality of time travel, Ray remembers that Cassie must still be in the pub at the time. However, she thinks she is looking at the original Ray, with whom she had just spoken, and leaves the pub. Only a second later she walks through the door again, in different clothes and with a different hair color. She explains that it has been six months for her since she left the pub. In the future it was recognized that something had gone wrong with the passage of time and this has now been fixed. During their conversation it becomes apparent that they are both drawn to each other. After she has disappeared again, the three of them hide in the closet to wait for the rest of the time until their actual presence there. When you come out again, you can watch yourself entering the men's room.

In order not to meet yourself, they now use the ladies' room. But the time problem is obviously not solved, because when they get out of the ladies room they find themselves in an abandoned, shabby future version of the pub. Pete then turns around on his foot and re-enters the ladies' room. Before Ray and Toby can follow him, seconds later a bearded, seedy Pete stumbles out of the men's room and warns them not to go into the ladies' room. It is clear from his fragmentary accounts that he has been mistaken through time for a long time. Using both toilets, he finally found his way back to his two friends. You find yourself in a distant future, where the abandoned, ruined city is covered in a thick layer of ash outside. They look for primitive weapons and find some shabby clothes to wear. While Ray would love to explore this future, Toby and Pete just want to go back to their own times. Another surprise awaits them on the outside wall of the pub: a classic painting of the three friends on which they are wearing their current, shabby clothes. Frightened by noises that suggest some kind of monster, they flee back into the men's room.

It doesn't take long for their former selves to enter the bathroom. While they are hiding in a toilet cubicle, their former selves leave the toilet again (it is their first time travel). When they leave the toilet themselves and enter the pub garden, they find themselves at a party, the participants of which are all dressed like the three friends. It's a fan party in her honor. And the mural from the future already exists here. Without the layer of dust, they can now see that it shows them at their table in the pub and that Toby's image is just writing something on a piece of paper. The three conclude that it is the content of this note that will make them famous. It's the back of Toby's letter to Hollywood that he left on the table. Before they learn more, another time traveler turns up who introduces herself as Millie and claims to be Cassie's former instructor. It helps them go back to their own time and tells them that they will become very famous in the future.

They reach their actual present again, about an hour before their first journey through time. Together they take a seat near their former selves and secretly observe them. After their former selves got up to go to the toilet for the first time, the three of them take a seat at their old table and read the note (the viewer never gets to know the contents, however). Ray leaves the pub to water in the garden this time and meets Cassie, for whom six months have passed again. He tells her about her experiences and Millie's help. But Cassie doesn't know Millie, and she realizes that it must be a time traveler who was sent to kill Toby at the height of his work. Both return to the pub.

Ray, Pete and Toby realize that their lives depend on the contents of the slip of paper. This will make her famous, but since its content will be the creative climax of her life, Millie wants to kill her right here and now. Ray and Pete try to burn the piece of paper, but Toby is more important about his prospect of eternal fame and he tries to stop them. Millie enters the bar and prevents Ray and Pete from destroying the note. Ray and Cassie fail to trick Millie into fleeing. She now gives Toby the choice: either he destroys the note and lives a long, meaningless and anonymous life, or he dies here and now as a legend whose fame will continue for a long time. Since Toby can't decide, Pete grabs the piece of paper and Millie wounds him with a bolt of energy. Toby has now made his decision and rejects Millie's offer. He tries to destroy the note with Ray's help, but Millie prevents this by shooting a violent discharge of energy from her hands that kills Toby, Pete, Cassie and everyone else in the pub. Millie disappears contentedly from the ruined pub, while the note gently lands on the table.

Only Ray survived the attack, seriously injured. With the last of his strength he tries to destroy the note after all, while Pete's former self enters the room and stares at his own corpse. While Pete escapes into the toilet again, Ray manages with the last of his strength to tip a glass of beer on the note and thus obscure the contents. Instantly the timeline and reality change. Destroying the note means that the content will never be known in the future and the friends will never become famous. As a result, there was never a reason for Millie to interfere with the passage of time and kill Toby. Ray, Pete and Toby find themselves at their table and everything is back to normal. Your time travel is obliterated as the timeline has been changed. But they all kept their memories of their adventure and are happy to be alive.

But their adventure is not over yet. On the way back from the pub, a glowing portal suddenly appears, from which Cassie steps out. Ray and Cassie hug and kiss. Ray is surprised to learn that in this changed timeline he has been dating Cassie for two years. Cassie explains to them that Ray's destruction of the note with a glass of beer had a huge impact on space-time and led to many time leaks. They only have 14 hours left to avert the destruction of the earth. Pete and Toby refuse with thanks, but Ray can convince his friends and together they jump into the energy portal to a parallel universe. After the credits, Ray can be seen in a short scene with two Petes and two identical Tobys chasing each other across the street.

production

The film is a co-production of the British BBC Films and the American cable broadcaster HBO.

Director Gareth Carrivick received the script for the film through his agent, who also represented the screenwriter Jamie Mathieson . At this point, Carrivick was looking for a script for his first cinema production. Together with producers Neil Peplow and Justin Smith, they spent a year finishing the script.

John Pardue's camera work, and especially the lighting, was heavily influenced by Gregory Crewdson's photography book Twilight .

The interior of the pub was filmed at Pinewood Studios . For economic reasons, high definition video was used instead of 35mm film . An Arriflex D-20 was used.

Publication and broadcast

The film was released in the UK and Ireland in April 2009 and has not been released internationally. The first weekend the film grossed 14,188 British pounds (around € 17,000).

In 2010 Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel was released on DVD (region code 2). The free TV premiere ran on August 1, 2010 on BBC Two, where it achieved an audience rating of 8.6% with 1.03 million viewers. In the US, it aired on HBO on August 10, 2010.

reception

The film received both benevolent and quite negative reviews. On the Rotten Tomatoes website, it has a low 37% rating (as of October 2010).

Edward Porter of the Sunday Times writes that while the film had some great ideas, it left too many questions. He awarded 2 out of 5 stars. In his review for sister newspaper The Times , Dominic Wells compares the film to a Mini Cooper : small but nimble and, despite being co-produced with American HBO Films, very British. He also praised the twists and turns of the plot and gave it 3 out of 5 stars.

Mark Adams describes the film on Mirror.co.uk as a gripping comedy that feels like an extended television pilot. He praised the fact that there were enough funny scenes that refreshingly set the film apart from normal British films.

In his review for The Guardian , Peter Bradshaw calls the film the "worst movie of the week". Anna Faris' natural sex appeal and delight would wither in the glare of a pub in this weird British film. He awarded 1 out of 5 stars.

Anthony Quinn gives the film 2 out of 5 stars in his short review for The Independent . He writes that while the film has a funny moment or two, it couldn't last for more than 90 minutes.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c John Pardue: Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel ( Memento of the original from January 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF, 240 kB). Retrieved October 2, 2010.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jpardue.co.uk
  2. ↑ Lions Gate Films: FAQ Production Notes  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (DOC, 56 kB). Retrieved October 2, 2010.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.lionsgatefilms.co.uk  
  3. ↑ Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel on Box Office Mojo. Retrieved October 2, 2010.
  4. ↑ HBO : HBO: Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel ( Memento of the original from March 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved October 2, 2010.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hbo.com
  5. ↑ Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel on Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved October 2, 2010.
  6. ^ Edward Porter: Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel. The Sunday Times , April 25, 2009, accessed October 2, 2010 .
  7. ^ Dominic Wells: Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel. The Times , April 22, 2009, accessed October 2, 2010 .
  8. ↑ Mark Adams: Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel. Daily Mirror , April 19, 2009, accessed October 2, 2010 .
  9. ^ Peter Bradshaw: Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel. The Guardian , April 24, 2009, accessed October 2, 2010 .
  10. ↑ Anthony Quinn: FAQ About Time Travel (15). The Independent , April 24, 2009, accessed October 2, 2010 .

Web links