About Time: what age is it for? 17, alone or with a parent
From 17, alone or with a parent.
Official US rating: R. In France, zinema would say 13.
Alone, or with you
The official US rating is R, and we never go below it. Alone from 17, and not before, even with an adult.
The sweet spot: around 17-18, the age at which you start to register that parents grow old, and the ending becomes something other than a film sadness. Why a sweet spot?
The trailer
What it's about
The night after another unsatisfactory New Year's party, Tim's father reveals to him that the men in their family have the ability to travel through time. They can't change history, but they can change what happens and has happened in their own lives. Thus begins the start of a lesson in learning to appreciate life itself as it is, as it comes, and most importantly, the people living alongside us.
Why 17
- The official rating, firstRated R in the US (restricted, under 17 requires an accompanying parent). zinema never goes below the country's rating: it explains it.rule
- The father's death, at lengthThe father dies of cancer in the last third. Tim keeps going back to see him in the past, until the day he can no longer do so without erasing his own child. These are the final twenty minutes, and they make everyone cry, adults included. Nothing of the illness is shown; it is all in the repeated goodbyes.
- Bedroom scenes, played for comedyThree scenes with Mary, the first replayed three times to get it right: shoulders, sheets, jokes. Nothing is shown, but sex is a constant topic of dialogue, crude in the original version, tamer in French.
- A sister who is not copingKit Kat drinks, clings to a partner who belittles her and ends up in a car crash. Tim wants to repair her life by going back in time, and the film shows why it does not work that way. Alcohol in many scenes.
What the movie brings
- A simple, true idea: the real power is not to redo your life, it is to live each day already knowing what it holds.
- A film about fathers and sons that is neither a reckoning nor a reconciliation, just time spent together.
- An English romantic comedy that embraces awkwardness rather than seduction.
Watching it together
The last twenty minutes are hard for anyone who has lost a parent or has one who is ill; know that before starting the film as a family.
at 17 and up
Tim ends up living each day twice, then not at all: what would you change about yesterday?
See the facts
For the same age, on zinema
- Borgen 17
- The Madison 17, 16 with a parent
- Suits 14
- The Good Wife 14
The latest guides
- Runner 13
- Un ours dans le Jura 13, 12 with a parent
- Lady Bird 17
- Vivre 13, 12 with a parent
A zinema reading from September 23, 2026 · the whole movie, watched in full · the age by zinema's rules for the US and France, and a human reading · report an error · how this guide is made