Review: Somewhere in Time

Somewhere in Time

Jane Seymore, Christopher Reeve

Here’s a slightly dated review for a slightly dated movie....

In my opinion, Somewhere in Time provides one of the more unlikely couplings of love interests. It ranks up there with Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant in Sense and Sensibility. But I will let you make your own decision. If you like the hairstyles of the 1980’s, this is a great film. Not the fake retro stuff like in The Wedding Singer, but genuine, since it was actually filmed in the 80’s.

Christopher Reeve is a playwright with some degree of success. After the debut of one of his plays, a handsome old woman tucks something in his hand and says, “Come back to me.” 

Ten years later (and an hour into the movie), he finds a way to Jane Seymour. Through self hypnosis and dressing the part, he convinces himself he is in 1912. He meets the lovely actress, woos her and gets beaten up over her. Christopher Plummer, her mysterious Svengali, guardian and mentor keeps looming and interfering in their relationship. No, he doesn’t break into “Eidelweiss.”

The couple (Reeve and Seymour) do have extramarital sex, which is not graphic. In the morning, a tragic twist of fate and carelessness awaits them. 

I first saw this movie in my college years when I was free to adore Christopher Reeve’s face. [Wow, that was back when we used the term "hunk" rather than "hottie." His face is about all you get during the first hour of the movie. When I was 18, it suited me just fine. Now that I’m married and certainly not 18, I found the plot thin.] Perhaps my second viewing of Somewhere in Time detracted from the final irony.

Somewhere in Time is “Lifetime” channel fare.  Seymour and Reeve lacked a certain necessary electricity. Perhaps the director intentionally established the tone, going for relationship rather than spark. Plummer reminds me of Liam Neeson in Batman Begins, his power somehow not exactly believable.

I expect Somewhere in Time will one day be a remake, maybe with Tobey Maguire, but in the remake, they’ll show his pectorals (why the original filmmaker didn’t play up Superman’s torso still puzzles me), and they’ll team him up with, oh, Lindsay Lohan in her blond phase. Or could there be some other such unlikely match?

CFI: 

If it were possible, I’d give it a negative number.

Date movie potential: 

Well, if you’re a guy on a date with a thirty or forty something woman, it might work. You, however, might fall asleep. I suggest you go for a Jane Austen adaptation. The characterization and dialogue is much better, even if Thompson and Grant don’t convince you.

$?

Rainy afternoon or bad cold fare, a buck or two.