Protagonist Tim discovers the men in his family can travel back to any moment in their own lives, using his gift to chase love and support friends and family members. While his power lends him the ability to re-do moments in his life, its caveat is that he cannot return to moments before the birth of his child, as doing so replaces the exact children he loves with others. Through this, he learns the impossibility of holding onto all moments, and the inevitability of loss and sadness.
In Tim’s final moments with his father, he is given a piece of advice on how to extract the most from his life. He is told to live each day twice: once with the tensions, frustrations and difficulties of normal life, and a second time bypassing these struggles, appreciating instead the small pockets of joy that initially went unnoticed. In this approach, Curtis’ message for the film becomes clear: life is not perfect nor is it easy, but in order to get the most from life, we must choose each day to see the moments worth cherishing, and in doing so, our ordinary days become meaningful.
As Tim reflects on his gift at the end of the film, he explains he no longer uses his power. Instead, he lives every day as though he has intentionally returned to it, relishing every moment as though it is his last. This sentiment is one that has successfully captured the hearts of viewers, and I argue as a student in the final year of university, the film’s central message on achieving lasting happiness represents an excellent approach to making the most of the final moments of the university experience.
While the third year of university is undoubtedly stressful, with the encroaching deadline of the dissertation, the pressure of exams and looming presence of life after university, it is important to recognise the fun moments within these intense periods and appreciate them to their full capacity. For many students, this semester is also full of ‘lasts’: last experiences living so close to friends, last moments in Newcastle and last weeks in education. As a final year student feeling the weight of deadline season, it is hard to achieve a mindset that looks beyond working towards the next deadline, and all too easy to take for granted spending time with friends and housemates and being able to do a course that I love. It therefore becomes important to make an active choice to identify these moments as the moments that one will return to when reflecting on university and live them with full enjoyment, instead of nostalgically looking back, regretful of not truly appreciating the unique joys of the university experience.
Like the characters in About Time, by living each day of the final semester of university with the knowledge these days are finite, we can find greater enjoyment of smaller moments that would otherwise be subsumed by the worry of final year.