From Time To Time
Review
by Anthony Morris
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From Time To Time
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World War II is coming to an end, but not quickly enough for Tolly
(Alex Etel), whose father has gone missing in the fighting in Europe. Sent
off to live with his paternal grandmother in her run-down old mansion,
he quickly takes an interest - inbetween telling anyone who expresses
the slightest sympathy over his plight that his father is only missing
and is bound to turn up soon - in the history of the house, especially
the events of 1805. Then the master of the house was often away,
leaving his spoilt son Sefton (Douglas Booth), evil butler (Dominic
West) and disinterested wife (Carice Van Houten) to run things, leaving
his blind daughter Susan (Eliza Bennett) at their mercy. It
doesn't take long though before Tolly's increasing obsession seems to
be recreating the past in front of his eyes - and more unusually, some
of the people he meets seem to be able to see him in return. By
now you've worked out that this is all firmly young adult time travel
material, but for the most part it's handled well, with the evil
characters having at least some depth to them and the various mysteries
mostly paying off well despite being not that hard to figure out. It's
all entertaining enough, but the real pay-off comes in a surprisingly
downbeat ending that stays true to what we know of both periods in time
without feeling like it's going too over the top. The message of
all this isn't all that surprising either - once you start bringing
ghosts into things it's not hard to work out where this'll end up – but
that doesn't mean it doesn't pack a punch in its own way. 3 out
of 5
From Time To Time
Australian Release: 2nd June,
2011
Official
Site: From Time To Time
Cast: Alex Etel, Timothy Spall and Maggie Smith
Director: Julian Fellowes
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