Timestalker
Alice Lowe's centuries-spanning comedy Timestalker has a neat premise but unfortunately, the jokes fall flat
Timestalker begins with Agnes (Alice Lowe), a 17th-century Scotswoman, experiencing a moment of love at first sight. Alex (Aneurin Barnard) might be a complete stranger to her, but she knows from the second she lays eyes on him that this is the person she was meant to be with – which is unfortunate, because he’s about to be executed for heresy.
Lowe’s new sci-fi comedy tracks Agnes through the centuries as she is reincarnated time and time again, respawning everywhere from 1790s England to 1980s Manhattan. No matter where or when she finds herself, every version of Agnes falls hopelessly in love with every version of Alex, and every version of their love story ends very badly.
It’s a fun conceit, essentially taking the same premise as Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast and playing it as a goofy historical romp rather than an existential anxiety dream. And there are some neat touches, like jumping from the Romantic Era to the New Romantic one – envisioning Alex first as a flamboyant highway robber, ordering passersby to “stand and deliver”, and then as an Adam and the Ants-style rocker.
Sadly, Timestalker doesn’t have the comic imagination to take advantage of its premise, with a surprising number of its jokes consisting simply of characters swearing, burping or falling over. And whether they’re wearing a powdered wig and a petticoat or a neon leotard, it just isn’t that funny.
Timestalker had its UK premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival