Time After Time (1979)

Review by All Movie Guide
Nicholas Meyer's directorial debut, Time After Time, manages to mix H.G. Wells, Jack the Ripper, time travel, and women's liberation. It also happens to be wonderfully entertaining. Malcolm McDowell invests Wells with a foppish intelligence that anyone who is unfamiliar with his work apart from A Clockwork Orange may be surprised by. If the film had been made 20 years later it would not be difficult to imagine Hugh Grant in the role. By skillfully establishing his character in the opening 20 minutes, the audience can easily accept how quickly Wells acclimates himself to the modern world. Sure, the fish-out-of-water jokes are there, and they are funny, but they are not the heart of the picture. That most certainly is Mary Steenburgen's bank teller, Amy Robbins. Wells falls for her because she espouses a post-hippie feminist belief system that is right in line with his utopian writings. That the film's tension doesn't dissipate as their love blossoms displays the skill of the actors and the tightness of the screenplay. Containing much of the same charm as Meyer's screenplay for The Seven-Percent Solution (which combined Sherlock Homes and Sigmund Freud with skill, humor, and tension), Time After Time is a good thriller and an engaging love story told with solid, old-fashioned storytelling technique. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide