Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel
| Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel | |
|---|---|
 UK Theatrical Poster |
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| Directed by | Gareth Carrivick |
| Produced by | Neil Peplow Justin Anderson Smith |
| Written by | Jamie Mathieson |
| Starring | Chris O'Dowd Dean Lennox Kelly Marc Wootton Anna Faris |
| Music by | James L. Venable |
| Cinematography | John Pardue |
| Editing by | Stuart Gazzard Christopher Blunden |
| Studio | BBC Films HBO Films |
| Distributed by | Picturehouse Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | 24 April 2009 |
| Running time | 83 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (styled as FAQ About Time Travel) is a 2009 science fiction comedy film directed by Gareth Carrivick from a script by Jamie Mathieson, starring Anna Faris, Chris O'Dowd, Marc Wootton and Dean Lennox Kelly.
The film follows two social outcasts and their cynical friend as they attempt to navigate a time travel conundrum in the middle of a British pub. Faris plays a girl from the future who sets the adventure in motion.
It was released in the UK and Ireland on 24 April 2009.
On its television premiere on BBC Two on 1 August 2010, the film was dedicated to its director Gareth Carrivick, who had died earlier in the year.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The film begins with Ray (Chris O'Dowd) being fired from his job at a local theme park. His two friends Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly) and Toby (Marc Wootton) dress in brightly coloured fluffy dinosaur costumes to promote "Dinoburgers" at the theme park restaurant. Pete has a side bet with Toby that Ray will not be able to go five minutes without mentioning time travel, which Pete wins.
After work they chat in a cafe, then go to the cinema. Leaving the film they complain about the quality of the movie, and that someone should write a letter to Hollywood. Toby declares that he has many great ideas and reads some from his notebook, which the others promptly mock. In the pub he does write the letter and complains about remakes, Jude Law, Han shot first, and mentions "more Firefly and/or Serenity" as a positive suggestion. He tears the completed letter out of his notebook and leaves it on the table.
To avoid the queue Ray goes to the bar in another section of the pub. A girl called Cassie (Anna Faris) catches his attention, and she talks to him about time travel. He assumes she must be a prank setup by his friends. She explains she is a time traveler whose time machine has been built into her body, and that her job is to find and repair "time leaks" and stop "editors" (rival time travelers who try to "improve history" by killing famous people at their finest moment). Ray tells his friends about this meeting, which they think he's making up.
Pete goes out to the toilet and upon returning finds the bar full of dead bodies, including his own bloody corpse. He runs to the toilet, and when he leaves the room again, he has returned to his own time. He wonders if this is the time leak Cassie has mentioned.
The others then follow him to the toilet and retrace his steps, in precise detail. They end up going back in time about a half hour. The bar seems normal at first but they notice their past selves already at their tables. Ray realises Cassie is still where he met her previously and goes to talk to her. Cassie doesn't believe him and leaves, only to immediately return, her hair and clothes having changed. She explains six months has passed for her even though only seconds passed for Ray.
They go talk in the garden, Cassie instructs Ray to simply hide out and wait the half hour until they catch up to the time their past selves went into the toilet. They wait in the cupboard. After waiting for a half hour, the three once again need to go to the toilet, and they use the women's toilets to avoid bumping into themselves. They leave but arrive in the distant future. Pete tries to go back into the women's toilet to reverse the trip, but appears again almost immediately, haggard and with a full grown beard and warning them not to go in. He explains he's been frequently using both toilets and randomly jumping time periods in an attempt to get back home. They go into the main bar, which is a crumble of broken walls and smashed furniture covered in ash and dust. Pete insists that what they need is weapons and food, so they scrounge around in the rubble, finding a knife, a corkscrew and an ancient package of potato chips with an expiration date of May 2094 (which taste bad, so well-past the sell by date). The outside world is a bleak ruin, also coated in ash and dust, indicating that they are in a post-apocalyptic future. Ray wants to go out to explore, and Toby wants to stay by the fire they've built till rescue comes, but Pete is eager to give the toilets another try so they can get back to their own time. While seeking a piece of wood to turn the knife into a spear, Pete discovers a partially decaying mural on the back wall of the pub showing the three of them sitting in the pub dressed as they are now, implying that they become famous, but from the decayed state of the mural it was impossible to deduce what for. Startled by a noise, they speculate that it could be the sound of a giant insect. It turns out to be just a homeless person walking by pushing a squeaky shopping trolley, who gets his head bitten off by a giant ant.
They wait in the toilet. Pete hints that sometimes other creatures enter the toilet. They hear a noise and hide. They see their past selves trace Pete's steps trying to travel in time. They hide from their past selves. After their past selves leave, they then run out into the garden to find the place full of people dressed just like them. It turns out to be an "imagineer" fan theme night based on them. They find the same mural as before, this time in a more perfect state, and observe that they becoming famous has something to do with the bit of note paper written earlier, they speculate what could have been written on both sides of the piece of paper. A second time traveler named Millie from Causal Adjust shows up and helps send them back to their own time.
They end up back in the pub about an hour early, so they decide to sit at a nearby table eavesdropping on their earlier selves, buy some pints and wait it out. After their past selves leave, they go back to their original seats to read the note on the back of the letter that will make them famous. Ray goes outside to pee. Cassie appears again. Ray thanks Cassie and Millie and the people at Causal Adjust. Cassie doesn't know any Millie and realises she must be an editor sent to kill them at their finest moment. Cassie attempts to go back and fix the problem but her time machine has been taken offline, so she returns to the bar, finding Millie there. Pete fights with Toby to destroy the note, but they are stopped by Millie. Millie makes Toby an offer: "die and live on as legends or live a long life anonymously" but Toby defies her. Millie sets off a blast killing everyone in the pub (leading to the tableau of death that Pete had seen earlier). Ray makes one last move to reach for the note. He doesn't reach it but instead spills a pint, which destroys the note. With nothing to make them famous, time rewinds and things seem to have gone back to normal, however they keep their memories of time travel events and the letter / note paper remains unreadable - socked in beer (slight paradox issue related to beer in the glasses itself - if they hadn't left table to go to the toilet for their time travel adventures, than the beer probably would have been drunk, leaving no beer to spill over the note paper).
The three friends walk home and wonder if the adventure is really over. Cassie then appears through a big glowing time portal. She reveals that they have only fourteen hours to save the Earth, and they have to go with her to a parallel universe. Ray convinces them to jump into the portal. After they leave, Ray and Pete come out from around the corner, only to realise they have a second duplicate Pete.
After the credits Ray and the two Petes hear a shout "get back freak" and Toby runs past being chased by a version of himself. Pete has the last words saying: "This is all getting a little bit too complicated".
[edit] Cast
- Chris O'Dowd as Ray, the imagineer
- Dean Lennox Kelly as Pete, the cynic
- Marc Wootton as Toby, the dreamer
- Anna Faris as Cassie, the time traveler
- Meredith MacNeill as Millie, a second time traveler who is also an "editor"
[edit] Home media
The DVD was released on 7 September 2009 in the UK.[1]
[edit] Production
The film is a co-production between HBO Films and BBC Films. It was filmed at Pinewood Studios in the UK.[2] The credits of the film include thanks to "The Wheatsheaf Pub".
[edit] Design
The opening credits appear in outline block letters in light blue against the background of space, in the same style as the Superman films.[3]
[edit] Reception
| Source | Score | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Empire magazine | 3 / 5 [4] | "Quirky and engaging with a script that keeps you on the ride." |
| The Irish Times | 2 / 5 [5] | Described as a "mildly diverting yarn" but was critical of the small scale of the film and the apparently limited budget. |
[edit] Soundtrack
- "Kayleigh" - performed by The Countdown Singers
- "Slippin' and Slidin'" - Performed by Rendle
- "Flea Circus" - Performed by Marder
- "Geno" - Performed by The Countdown Singers
- "The Land of Make Believe" - Performed by Bucks Fizz
- "Rivers of Babylon" - Performed by Boney M
- "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" - Performed by Bonnie Tyler
- "Magic" - Performed by The Countdown Singers
- "The Final Countdown" - Performed by Eskimo Disco
- "Human" - Performed by Ry Byron & The Gentleman
[edit] References
- ^ FAQ About Time Travel (Frequently Asked Questions), Play.com
- ^ Pinewood Studios Diary 1, October 16, 2006, Jamie Mathieson: Blog
- ^ Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009), Close-Up Film Reviews
- ^ Empire's Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel Movie Review
- ^ The Irish Times - Fri, Apr 24, 2009 - Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel
