Source: About Time (Universal Pictures)
Here is a Plot Segmentation of the 2013 film About Time by Richard Curtis. I wasn’t quite sure how to define the differing sections of the film so I went by significant (ish) plot points. To be frank, I do not know if I did this properly, it feels rather in depth and non specific so I may have not done it correctly. Though, here it is;
C. Credits
- Introduction of setting and characters
a. Characters are introduced by Tim narration.
b. Home setting of Cornwall is set up.
2. Tim’s desire to find love is set up as life goal
a. New Year’s Eve party where Tim regrets not kissing Polly.
b. New Year’s Day James tells Tim that he can travel in time
c. Tim tries out his new skill and goes back to New Year’s Eve to kiss Polly.
d. New quest to fall in love, using time travel.
3. Summer
a. Tim forms an obsession with Charlotte.
b. Tim trials his new skill to try and create a relationship with Charlotte; his dad is aware of such time travelling.
c. Tim discovers time travel can not make someone like you.
d. Charlotte leaves for London.
4. Tim moves to London in search of girlfriend
a. Tim lives with Harry.
b. Tim meets Rory at his new job and they become friends.
c. Tim is unexpectedly lacking a love life.
5. The night of the blind date
a. Tim meets Mary in a meet-cue and it goes successfully.
b. Tim goes home to find Harry’s play flopped on its opening night, and travels back in time to fix it.
c. Tim discovers travelling back in time has deleted Mary’s number from his phone.
6. Tim’s quest to meet Mary again: The Art Gallery
a. Tim waits around at the Kate Moss exhibition for a week, hoping to meet Mary.
b. KitKat — who has moved to London — waits around with Tim and finally Mary arrives with Joanna.
c. Tim messes up the first interaction — as Mary does not remember Tim — and tries to talk to Mary again.
d. Tim ends up having Lunch with Joanna, Mary and Mary’s new boyfriend Rupert.
7. Tim’s quest to meet Mary again: The Party
a. Tim travels back in time to ensure Rupert and Mary don’t meet.
b. Tim succeeds and goes on a date with Mary.
c. Tim stays the night at Mary’s and reattempts sex multiple times until its sufficient.
8. Tim and Mary happily date
a. Sequence of day to day life, mainly in London Underground.
9. Tim meets Mary’s parents
a. Unprepared meeting, minute stress period.
b. It goes well with one trip back in time to resurrect Tim’s image.
10. Tim goes to the theatre with Rory
a. Tim sees Charlotte and attempts multiple times to interact with her unsuccessfully.
b. Tim decides to leave without talking to Charlotte.
c. Charlotte bumps into Tim coincidently and they go out for dinner, he walks Charlotte home and has the opportunity to go inside her apartment but instead runs home to Mary.
11. Tim proposes to Mary
a. Mary accepts his (second) proposal.
12. Mary and Tim go to Cornwall
a. Mary meets Tim’s family and is immediately accepted by them.
b. Tim bathes in quality time with his dad.
c. KitKat is also in Cornwall after struggling in London.
d. Mary and Tim tell the family about the engagement and additionally that Mary is pregnant.
13. The wedding
a. Back in London Mary and Tim promptly decide wedding arrangements.
b. The wedding is held in Cornwall at a church, with nonconventional music and terrible weather.
c. The weather sends everyone into the family home in which Tim incessantly travels back in time to pick the best best-man after they all struggle with their speeches.
d. Finally landing on his dad to be best-man, James delivers a heartfelt speech.
e. Happy families at wedding.
14. Mary gives birth to Posy
a. Tim discovers he should no longer travel back in time, since the birth of Posy.
b. Tim and Mary move houses to have more room for children.
c. Tim ceases to time travel because he loves his life.
15. Posy’s first birthday
a. Friends and family all attend Posy’s first birthday party.
b. KitKat is late.
c. Jimmy arrives and informs Tim that he and KitKat had an argument and she drove away drunk.
16. KitKat gets in a car accident
a. Tim mitigates the accident by travelling back in time to pick her up before she gets in the car.
b. KitKat attends the birthday party.
c. Mary and Tim acknowledge KitKat isn’t well.
d. Tim goes to Cornwall to see KitKat and attempts to fix her life through time travelling back to the first New Years Eve where she met Jimmy.
e. Tim and KitKat successfully change the past, they return to real time to find KitKat is in love with Jay, not Jimmy.
17. Tim returns to London.
a. Posy is no longer a girl and he is met with a different baby.
b. Tim travels back to the birth of Posy to talk to his father and learns that he can no longer travel past the birth of Posy.
c. Tim rewrites New Year’s Eve to how it initially was and KitKat gets into the car accident.
d. Tim and Mary wait around with KitKat in Hospital to ensure she discovers how to get better; encouraging her to date Jay.
18. Tim and Mary have another child
19. Tim gets a call from his mother to say his dad is unwell.
a. Tim, Mary and Posie go to Cornwall and discover James has terminal cancer.
b. Tim spends quality time with his dad, talking about the secrets of life and time travel.
20. Mary and Tim return to London
a. Tim lives each day twice; once normally and a second time to positively revel in it all.
b. James dies and the family returns to Cornwall for the funeral
21. Tim must chose between having another child and continuing to travel back in time to see his father
a. Mary falls pregnant.
b. On the night of her labour, Tim travels back to see his father one last time and they travel further back in time together to when Tim was a child. They do not change anything and Tim returns to his life and newborn.
22. Life returns to normal, the story resolves
a. Kit Kat becomes a mother.
b. Tim strives to be the best dad, partner, and person by no longer travelling in time. He lives everyday as if it was the final day of his life.
c. Tim has learnt from his father and time travelling experiences to be happy with his ordinary life.
E. End credits
There you go, in her extraordinary length. C’est la vie.