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Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel review

Kevin considers a fledgling film's future...

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Well done Jamie Mathieson. Because in Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel , the debut feature-length script-writer lays out a solid framework on which is hung an enjoyable, if occasionally rough-ended ‘ladventure’ doing well on a screen the film is just about worthy of. That’s a compliment more than anything though, because Mathieson’s scribbles are acted and directed by a group far more used to the demands of the box in the front-room than of filling the aisles with popcorn critics.

Director Gareth Carrivick, fresh from BBC series Beautiful People , does a commendable job of getting Ray (Chris O’Dowd), Toby (Marc Wooton) and Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly) into place, albeit predominantly in one beer-soaked setting. Meanwhile, time travelling ‘bloke’s babe’ Cassie (Anna Faris) holds enough grace and integrity in her role as the time travelling lust-after to provide an occasional, but refreshing aside to the semi-humourous goings on.

The events themselves start with a retreat to the local boozer with Ray, the ‘acceptable face of geekdom’ and best mates Toby and Pete joining to simultaneously provide their musings on life and the occasional round of drinks. If this sounds like a standard night in the pub to any of you reading this, then that’s because it is, until…wait for it…a round of drinks finds the beautiful Faris alone in the pub (isn’t that always the way?), a time leak is discovered in the gents, and adventure and hilarity equally ensue. Err, not quite, mainly because none of it is hilarious nor particularly adventurous, but actually that doesn’t much devalue the experience.

Whatever Mathieson’s intentions were for FAQ , if the humour on offer fails to tickle you, you’ll still get to witness the tidy crafting of his plot where the logistics of seemingly infinite groups of the three lads desperately trying to avoid each other are impressively achieved. You’ll also be witness to the brief, but well known rules of time travel discussed and mostly obeyed throughout, see a short but bleak view of futures inspired by beer-fuelled note-taking and putting the world to rights (a lesson to us all), and also find that you might actually enjoy – if not laugh out loud at – the film more than you would expect.

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That you might not always see its funny side, nor be particularly blown away by its tidy climax, should be weighed against a coming of age of a group of mostly British actors, the spying of a debut screenwriter and a ‘you know who your mates are’ impact in the tying up by the time the credits roll.

But this is all inconsequential posted next to the title’s main concern. The challenge Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel faces head on is that of where it finds its audience. The type of characters it depicts will no doubt be tempted by their own watering hole over a group-trip to the local multiplex, and I can’t see many girlfriends being dragged along to this as a lad’s ‘must-see’. Having said that, for the price of a couple of drinks in your local, you could be witness to a credibly accomplished story from a new writer, a now and again tale of intriguing self-avoidance, and a story of laddishness battling adversity. If that’s your tipple.

More musings from Kevin Pocock can be found at his blog: www.kevinpocock.com .

Kevin Pocock

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel Review

24 Apr 2009

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

Taking place in the pub and the future, it can sometimes stumble into Red Dwarf territory, but strong performances, especially from Dean Lennox Kelly as the cynical Pete and Anna Faris as kooky time-traveller Cassie, and a smart script do enough to ensure you’ll stay with it until the end.

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Movies | 15 04 2009

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FAQ About Time Travel

Details: 2009, UK, Cert 15, 82 mins

Direction: Gareth Carrivick

With: Anna Faris ,  Chris O'Dowd ,  Dean Lennox Kelly ,  Marc Wootton and Meredith MacNeill

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Eye For Film >> Movies >> Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009) Film Review

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

Reviewed by: Jeff Robson

The concept of time travel has inspired some great movies – The Terminator , Twelve Monkeys and the (original!) Time Machine – but, all the same, you have to admit it’s a bit silly.

The idea of meeting a future/past version of yourself, killing your own granddad and changing the course of history by getting a butterfly to flap its wings (or something) has undoubted comic potential. And if TV sitcom veteran Carrivick’s film debut doesn’t quite milk it to the full there are still worse ways to pass 86 minutes – in this dimension, anyway.

You can guess the pitch – ‘The Terminator meets Shaun Of The Dead ’, as a high-concept Hollywood genre is relocated to small-town England and played out by a cast of nerds and losers. The trouble is that both of those films were absolute corkers and I had fears of having to sit through a lame retread of the Pegg/Frost/Wright formula with none of the wit, style and genuine affection for the object of its spoofery that characterised both Shaun... and Hot Fuzz .

The first pleasant surprise comes in the opening scene, where some halfway decent special effects create an alien battle fleet ominously poised above the Earth, with an impressively tooled-up commander exhorting his crew to kick some intergalactic ass.

Sadly, it’s all a back-projection at a kiddies’ theme park – and the starship trooper is Ray (Chris O’Dowd), a sci-fi nerd who gets into character a bit too much and scares the living daylights out of his young charges. Sacked on the spot, he hooks up with his mates Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly) and Toby (Marc Wootton), who are busily employed handing out flyers for the nearby burger emporium dressed as dinosaurs, and the three decide the ideal remedy for their career woes is a night at the pub.

But on the way to the bar, Ray meets Cassie (Anna Faris) a beautiful but mysterious stranger, who warns him that a time portal has been opened up in the pub and that if he’s not careful the future will be altered forever – a future in which Ray and his mates become revered for their genius. All he has to do is avoid the gent’s toilets...

Naturally he thinks it’s a wind-up by the other two despite their protestations of innocence. But when Pete pays a visit to the little boys’ room he returns to find the bar full of dead bodies – including an older version of himself.

Again, this is an unexpected and striking scene, setting up enough of a sense of confusion and danger to make the boys’ adventures more than just an extended one-off sitcom. As they attempt to get time back on track they face the question: would you rather have a chaotic and unpredictable future where you have a chance to be something different, or carry on in a safe, unchallenging rut? They also learn that not all time-travelling hotties are good – and that they really should steer clear of the gent’s.

The success of a film like this depends to a huge extent on the players and fortunately Carrivick (whose TV credits range from Vicar Of Dibley to Two Pints of Lager...) has chosen wisely. O’Dowd, star of The IT Crowd and one of the best things in Annie Griffin’s ensemble comedy Festival , is a natural comic actor and his two foils are no slouches either. Wootton is a very believable fellow nerd, forever dreaming up ideas that will blow Hollywood away, just as soon he’s finished polishing the script, of course. Kelly (a mainstay of Shameless for several years) overdoes the Gallagher-esque Manc wideboy act in the early scenes but becomes convincingly wired and paranoid as the member of the trio who always seems to draw the short straw when visiting alternative universes.

Faris, a long way away from The House Bunny and a long way up from Scary Movie , is a game and glamorous foil to these wacky British guys. Mathieson’s script provides regular but not continuous laughs and there are times when the limits of the budget do become apparent. But in the main this is a fun, quirky film that could well be a post-pub favourite in the making. Given time, of course.

Director: Gareth Carrivick

Writer: Jamie Mathieson

Starring: Anna Faris, Chris O’Dowd, Dean Lennox Kelly, Marc Wootton

Runtime: 86 minutes

Country: UK

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Reel review: ‘frequently asked questions about time travel’.

By Anna Husted EBS Film Critic

On a typical night out at the pub, three best friends Ray (Chris O’Dowd), Toby (Marc Wootton) and Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly) accidentally invent a time-traveling device. Ray stumbles upon this invention when a pretty blonde named Cassie (Anna Farris) introduces herself as a woman from the future who has always wanted to meet the famous inventors.

The three nerds, or “imagineers” as Ray prefers to the offensive “n” word, do not believe Cassie initially, but then strange rifts in time begin to happen. In one instance, Pete returns to the pub from the bathroom and finds everyone murdered. In another, the entire town has been destroyed. Cassie’s presence has caused all hell to break lose in the future, which in turn affects the friends’ present.

Without giving away too many of the frequently asked questions, there a few typical time-travel inquiries that preoccupy the friends: What happens when you see your present self? Does traveling through time age the traveler? Can you travel back in time to before the time-traveling device was invented?

I love talking about time travel and parallel universes so I appreciate seeing it depicted in an interesting way on screen. Even more so, I love seeing time travel depicted with that British underdog sense of humor—like the friends pointing out that of course everyone in the future has an American accent; or in order to avoid seeing themselves in the present they have to hide in a tiny broom closet for what feels like days.

Another brilliant story device is that “Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel” takes place almost entirely in one location—the pub. The movie has a glorious runtime of one hour and 23 minutes so viewers don’t get bored or exhausted by that local drinking establishment. Plus, the pub acts as a totem marker for where travelers are in time. If the men’s bathroom is in disarray you know you are in the present, but if it ceases to exist at all you are in a future you don’t want to be in.

“Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel” is a little gem of a film made by Gareth Carrivick in 2009, his only feature film before his untimely death a year later. For me, Carrivick lives on as a great director of one highly entertaining film.

“Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel” is witty and relatable, and makes for great discussions about the rules of time travel. It starts and ends with a bang and, as Ray says, don’t think about time travel too hard or it’ll “turn your brain into spaghetti if you let it.”

“Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel” is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

Anna Husted has a master’s in film studies from New York University. In Big Sky she can be found at the movies at Lone Peak Cinema or hiking up a mountain. When not gazing at the silver screen or watching her new favorite TV show, she’s running, fishing or roughhousing with her cat, Indiana Jones.

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Review: Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009)

Directed by Gareth Carrivick, 2009.

In the last two decades, there certainly was no shortage of time travel movies. Some turned out great, and some were pretty bad. Time travel movies – and time travel in general – always contain at least one paradox, namely a ‘version’ of the grandfather paradox. Someone from the future causes something in the past which renders the future that changed the past impossible. Every time travel movie has its own rules. Good times travel movies know their own rules, and above all, their own paradoxes. They play into these paradoxes, explain them, or at the very least acknowledge them. Looper (2012) does neither one of those things. The movie is so inherently inconsistent about its own rules of cause and effect that the only thing there is left to figure out is why it has such a high rating on IMDb.

Making a time travel movie requires a good script, and above all a story that at least to some point challenges your intelligence to figure out the plot. After seeing Looper I was in dire need to watch such a time travel movie. Therefore, I turned to Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009) which is, naturally, about time travel. Both the screenwriters and the characters in the movie themselves knew the rules, knew the paradoxes, and decided to have a little bit of meta-humorous fun with it. Save yourself a box-office ticket to disappointment, and watch this movie instead of Looper … Don’t you wish you could go back in time to warn yourself to wait for the DVD release sometimes?

More Snippet Reviews

Content creator Pim Razenberg is an experienced traveler who’s been roaming the planet for many years. After a stint in the Dutch film industry, he lived and worked in Romania, the United Kingdom, and Thailand. Pim is currently working in the Netherlands, bringing creative new projects to fruition and writing a novel detailing his journeys across the world.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel Reviews

Screenwriter Jamie Mathieson deserves a lot of credit for a tightly structured set-up... The trouble is the banter is a stairway to nowhere; the punchlines wither in the actors' mouths, raising weak smiles but no belly laughs.

Full Review | Aug 9, 2018

...an amiable, well-meaning bit of escapist sci-fi...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 8, 2011

There are some good ideas, but I was disappointed not to get an ending that pieced everything together into a satisfying chain of events. The film provokes questions, all right, but too many are left unanswered.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 28, 2009

Through no particular fault of the performers, it is pointless, perfunctory and painfully unfunny.

Full Review | Apr 28, 2009

While entertaining, this feels like it belongs on TV.

Overcoming a limited budget with imagination and charismatic characters, it's a minor miracle to see a British movie take on a subject matter monopolised by Hollywood and emerge on level terms.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 25, 2009

A good effort, but ultimately one that may have been more suited to a TV special than a fully-fledged feature, FAQ... is like that geeky friend you really want to like - if only they'd sort out their BO problem and stop talking about Deep Space Nine.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 25, 2009

An undercooked, rapidly unravelling script, low-grade production values (is that the best future costume you have?), plodding direction and an apologetically crap ending are not worth the price of a cinema ticket in these belt-tightening times.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 25, 2009

While it doesn't quite achieve the same standards as its recent forebears in British genre comedy, this modest film has amiable, convoluted charm.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 24, 2009

Refreshingly, director Carrivick's feature debut is both dark, compelling and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny.

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel is, unashamedly, a Mini Cooper of a film: small but nippy.

This is the worst film of the week, a dire British comedy, to which the only honest response is to soil and then set fire to the Union flag in the foyer of your local cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 24, 2009

What do you get if you take Shaun Of The Dead, subtract the zombies and add time travel? Sadly, not Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 24, 2009

This engaging comedy feels like a stretched-out TV pilot, but is nicely put together, with enough laughs to make a refreshing change from usual Brit film fare..

Full Review | Apr 24, 2009

A British "comedy" which is stuck in the past, a time when someone mixing up Star Wars and Star Trek was a gag.

The film resembles nothing so much as an indifferent and wildly over-stretched episode of space sitcom Red Dwarf.

One or two amusing moments, but not sustainable for 90 minutes.

Enjoyable comedy with likeable characters, several witty one-liners and an engaging plot, but you can't help feeling they could have done a lot more with the premise.

Sub-Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy rubbish.

"HOW hard can it be to make a film that doesn't suck?" asks bitter wannabe-screenwriter Toby early on. Anyone stumbling out of this latest Britcom would be forgiven for wondering the same thing, given that it sucks like a black hole.

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel review

Timetravel through a urinal now you really are taking the....

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Science fiction geek Ray (The IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd) thinks he’s being wound up when he meets a woman from the future (Anna Faris, in desperate need of a new agent) down his local boozer. Even more suss – his cynical best mate Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly) declares he’s found a way to time travel via the pub urinal…

Wanting to be the SF answer to Shaun Of The Dead so badly it smarts, this doggedly quirky Brit-com repeatedly betrays the small-screen background of director Gareth Carrivick.

As a TV pilot it might have had potential; but an undercooked, rapidly unravelling script, low-grade production values (is that the best future costume you have?), plodding direction and an apologetically crap ending are not worth the price of a cinema ticket in these belt-tightening times. Without a time-bending pisser, it’s a couple of hours you won’t get back.

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• "This is the worst film of the week, a dire British comedy, to which the only honest response is to soil and then set fire to the Union flag in the foyer of your local cinema. (...) Rating: ★ (out of 5)"  Peter Bradshaw : The Guardian
• "Refreshingly, director Carrivick's feature debut is both dark, compelling and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny." Philip Wilding : Empire
• "There are some good ideas, but I was disappointed not to get an ending that pieced everything together into a satisfying chain of events" Edward Porter : The Sunday Times
• "One or two amusing moments, but not sustainable for 90 minutes." Anthony Quinn : The Independent

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Frequently asked questions about time travel.

Directed by Gareth Carrivick

Three guys. One pub. Too much time on their hands.

Three men walk into a bar; two geeks and a cynic. They are three ordinary blokes who all have dreams and hopes for an exciting and better future

Chris O'Dowd Dean Lennox Kelly Marc Wootton Anna Faris Meredith MacNeill Ray Gardner Nick Ewans Arthur Nightingale

Director Director

Gareth Carrivick

Producers Producers

Jamie Mathieson Neil Peplow Justin Anderson Smith

Writer Writer

Jamie Mathieson

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Tracey Gillham

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Stuart Gazzard Christopher Blunden

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John Pardue

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Chris Stoaling Martin Harrison Finn McGrath Vicki Allen

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David M. Thompson Joe Oppenheimer

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John Pardue Roger Tooley Mike Parker

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Gerry Vasbenter Neve Cunningham

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Tina Charad

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Bob Hollow Simon Davey Curtis Iggulden Kingsley Fryer Adam Hollow Mark McKendry

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Luke Wilmot Tony Gilbert

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Vincent Keane

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Jim Greenhorn Jack Gillies Paul Davies Richard Davey Clive Derbyshire

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Stephanie Collie

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Vickie Lang Pamela Haddock Lisa Cavalli-Green Tony Lilley Zoë Styles Laurence Simmons Callum King

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Alternative Titles

Perguntas Frequentes sobre Viagem no Tempo, כל מה שרציתם לדעת על מסע בזמן, 시간 여행에 관한 FAQ, 時光旅行問答集, FAQ About Time Travel

Science Fiction Romance Drama Comedy

Crude humor and satire Gags, jokes, and slapstick humor Laugh-out-loud relationship entanglements Amusing jokes and witty satire Funny jokes and crude humor Catchy songs and hilarious musical comedy Show All…

Releases by Date

24 apr 2009, 18 jul 2018, releases by country.

• Theatrical M
• Digital 10 OCS
• Theatrical 15
• Theatrical PG-13

83 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Dio Vayne ★★★★

I wrote a lengthy review about how this movie treats time-travel with a bit more respect than most film, but I went back in time, erased it, and wrote this crap.

Review by Silent J ★★★½

Have you ever wondered what Doctor Who (the Steven Moffat episodes) would look like with a bit of Shaun of the Dead-esque humor? Well, look no further than the FAQ About Time Travel.

I went into this not knowing anything about it other than it starred Chris O'Dowd and that it probably had some time travel. I certainly was not disappointed. If you need a little more convincing in order to check this out yourself, just know that it's about 3 friends who discover time travel in a pub. It takes it's sweet time in the beginning, admittedly, but as soon as Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly, aka the guy who played Shakespeare on Doctor Who) starts singing Total Eclipse of…

Review by {Sam G} ★★★★

I heard this randomly mentioned in a Bert Kreischer podcast and what a fucking  GEM . A British time travel comedy, somewhat in the vein of SOTD . Taking place entirely at a bar, 3 friends go on a pretty hilarious journey within said bar and I was just eating this shit up. I’m a huge fan of Chris O’Dowd from The IT Crowd and the other 2, who I wasn’t familiar with, were funny as well. This shit had me cracking up, to a point where I was excited to see where it goes, and it just kept finding creative ways to keep things moving. Anna Faris  has a fun role too. 

I couldn’t find much on this director, but Thank you Gareth Carrivick (RIP) for giving me this Cult Comedy Gem to endlessly enjoy. 8.4/10🍺

Review by JBird ★★★½

Three friends considered film geeks, Think Hollywood has gotten bleak. Since they know better, They write a letter, And are thrown into a Time Leak.

Review by 🎞️📼Spencer💿📺 ★★★

I came here for Anna Faris.

Review by Mr. DuLac ★★★½

Little bit weird, but ummm... turns out everybody in the future, American. -Ray

A time travel movie I can completely identify with. No matter what time they go to, they never leave the pub. I would get behind that plan. It's like watching a lazy Dr. Who . At one point they think that the time travel could be triggered by a series of events that include peeing while singing Total Eclipse Of The Heart . Brilliant.

Review by Poppy Palmer ★★★★½

I had never heard of this film before and flicked it on in the middle of the night by accident. As a result, I am having difficulty deciding whether it is actually a good film or if I only immensely enjoyed it because I am a sucker for time travel.

Either way, it was funny and I bloody love a good time paradox. I feel like I connected with it on a spiritual level. These are my people.

Review by Bizon ★½ 2

Terminally bland. Wish it was worse, just so there would be something to say about it. It went back in time and removed any impression from my brain, like it never existed.

Review by Jordan Beaumont Anderson ★★½

Admirably short, intriguingly loopy, intermittently charming, frequently obnoxious.

Review by Dale Nauertz ★★★½

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

A group of friends, one of whom has just lost his job and is obsessed with sci-fi, accidentally discover that the restroom at their local pub is the source of a time anomaly that allows them to travel to random points in time. They find themselves encountering a potential future and trying to figure out how to make it back to their own time and fix anything they may have screwed up during their accidental time journeys.

"Frequently Asked Questions About Time" has a very British sense of humor and lots of fun with its premise. It's not quite as transcendent or exciting as it would have been in the hands of Edgar Wright, particularly, but it's still an amusing…

Review by John Uptergrove ★★★½

It’s seems like they tried really hard to be like an Edgar Wright movie, but didn’t quite get there. It does have its funny moments, but the plot wasn’t groundbreaking or anything and it wasn’t very memorable.

Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🇵🇸 ★★★ 2

I think I'm all burned out on time travel now.

There's been a lot of that in the last month and a bit and Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel almost put me over my tolerance levels. But at the very least it did perhaps solve one problem, or almost solve it at least.

I was talking on Twitter recently about people I like in films who are never in anything good and the name Anna Faris was quite central to this discussion. She's a delight but she doesn't choose well, does she? I suppose now with Lost In Translation, May and this under her belt, she's just about done enough to ease herself out of that category. Only just,…

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