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Valentine’s Day is a time for sweet, romantic stories about finding true love and living happily ever after. But not every love story ends in happily ever after—and the quirky but dark romantic comedy Timestalker follows the story of one woman who falls in love, only to end up dying for her love, over and over again.
Timestalker travels through time with Agnes (Alice Lowe), who just can’t seem to get her life figured out. Back in the 17th century, when Agnes attends the public execution of a heretic named Alex (Aneurin Barnard), she falls madly in love with him and decides that they’re destined to be together. She interrupts his execution but ends up dying in the process—only to be reincarnated in another time, where her mediocre life with brutish husband George (Nick Frost) is once again disrupted by her love for the wrong man.
Century after century, Agnes finds herself reconnecting with the man of her dreams, no matter what form he takes: a heretic, a thief with dreams of greatness, or an international pop sensation. Each time, she sets out to win him over once and for all. But, each time, she ends up saving the handsome troublemaker’s life before losing her own, destined to relive the same fate over again in another time.
Agnes’s doomed love story is whimsical and silly and generally over-the-top—whether she’s a bored noblewoman at the beginning of the French Revolution or a spandex-wearing woman of the ‘80s, consulting a psychic after her aerobics class. Writer, director, and star Alice Lowe clearly had fun taking her character through one ill-fated timeline after another, each time hoping that everything will finally work out for her and her soulmate. Though each stop in time finds Agnes racing toward the same fate—surrounded by the same cast of characters—each installment in her story is a little bit different, which keeps the film from feeling too monotonous. There may not be anything especially mind-blowing about it—and it’s all rather haphazard—but it’s a goofy, lighthearted British comedy for anyone who just can’t stomach another fluffy rom-com.
If you’ve ever felt incredibly unlucky in love, you’ll appreciate the dark humor of this anti-rom-com—especially if you’ve got a dark sense of humor and appreciate British comedy. And maybe it’ll give you a little bit of hope that you might just get it right in the end.
You can travel through time with Agnes when Timestalker arrives in select theaters and on demand on February 14, 2025.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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