Timestalker: Film Review
I was a huge fan of Alice Lowe‘s 2016 directorial debut Prevenge so I simply had to check out her sophomore effort, Timestalker.
In this sci-fi romantic comedy, she plays Agnes over many different time periods, from 1688 (think The Crucible vibes) to 2117 (think futuristic rebel punks). In each timeline, she always falls for the same man, Alex (Aneurin Barnard), suffers a gruesome death and is reincarnated. Becoming aware that she’s always chasing Alex through time, Agnes eventually tries to break the cycle.
It took a while for me to get into this because it is very unusual and has a specific – and very British – sense of humour. Some people will be on its unconventional wavelength straight away but I couldn’t get there for ages. I liked the overall concept and the set-up of each new timeline but the jokes mostly fell flat for me.
That being said, it was always exciting to see what Agnes and Alex would be reincarnated as next, what the next time period and storyline would be and how the supporting players and recurring motifs (red canary, black dog etc) would be involved. The likes of Tanya Reynolds, Nick Frost, Jacob Anderson and Kate Dickie pop up in almost every timeline as new characters.
Everything finally clicked into place for me with the fourth timeline set in 1980s New York. This is a key realisation chapter for Agnes and is also where she truly becomes the stalker of the film’s title. Plus, I loved a lot of the imagery, particularly Agnes doing aerobics classes. I couldn’t help but laugh seeing Barnard as an Adam Ant-style ’80s rock star in music videos and live shows (his voice is hilarious too). The supporting cast has more to do as well, with Anderson standing out as Alex’s manager, Frost as Agnes’s stalker and Reynolds as her friend Meg.
I warmed up to Timestalker more and more as it went along. I appreciated the originality, the bold vision and the look of each period in history (particularly the French Revolution-era wigs!) but it personally wasn’t that effective as a comedy. It’s a quirky movie that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea – and I don’t think it spoke to my sense of humour.
In cinemas from Friday 11th October