How many times have we been warned that time travel is dangerous? Clearly, not as much as we should have been. But look, it seems so easy what with those phone booths lying around everywhere and who wouldn’t be lured in by a bumper car?
That’s the question easily answered in Chris Reading and the Shakespeare Sisters’ mockumentary Time Travel Is Dangerous. It understands us. That bumper car is seriously shiny.
When junk shop owners Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson) find it in the trash outside a TV studio, they had to give it a spin. At first, it’s a way to source good vintage items, going back in time to steal things when at the time of their production. Confusing to collectors, yes, but worse for the space-time continuum and the amateur inventors club that didn’t realize one of their doodads actually worked.
Syratt and Reading conceived of the story, with producers Hillary and Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare fleshing it out into a wonderfully dry screenplay. The result puts an overdue feminist spin on the sensibilities of Douglas Adams and Terry Gilliam. If occasionally the mockumentary format strains under some of the set-ups, Time Travel Is Dangerous moves along so beautifully you won’t care.
Characters Ruth and Megan are affably dim, but not in the Bill and Ted vein. Their repartee illustrates a strong friendship put to the test by accidentally ripping a hole in time. “We were just messing about and somehow I ended up in 1945…” Surrounded by recognizably nerdy inventors, the women may be in over their heads, but they’re so earnest.
And Reading has cast this wonderfully. In addition to Stephen Fry providing omniscient narration, Brian Blessed OBE makes a clever guest appearance. So many character actors crop up you’ll want a blu-ray to freeze and say, “hey, I know them!” Special call outs to Tony Way as the socially awkward Peter and underrated American actor Tom Lenk as the unctuous recording secretary Alex. When you see them decamp to a local pub trivia session, it’s almost too real for comfort. And that’s after seeing Peter’s rocket boots.
Silly yet smart, Time Travel Is Dangerous both proves its point and offers a distraction so good you’ll want to time travel back to watch it again.
The film plays once more at Cinequest, Friday March 14 at 4:15 pm in the California Theater. It opens in the UK on March 28.
