MOVIE OF THE WEEK February 14, 2025: TIMESTALKER
Writer/director/star Alice Lowe explores the intersection of love, obsession, desire, and destiny in the beguilingly quirky Timestalker. Incorporating elements of comedy, drama, romance, and sci-fi, Lowe bends genres with glee as she follows main character Agnes (whom she plays herself) through the centuries as she tries to connect with her beloved … and dodge her own violent death, succeeding at neither until she’s ready for some genuine introspection.
The film first introduces viewers to Agnes in 17th-century Scotland, where she’s living a fairly uneventful life until she attends the public sentencing of Alex (Aneurin Barnard), a rogue preacher condemned for heresy, locks eyes with him, and realizes that he’s the love of all her lifetimes. But before they can make any kind of connection, she has a terrible accident and dies. This pattern ends up being repeated in some way in each of Agnes and Alex’s lives, as they’re reincarnated century after century: She pines for him, tries to establish some kind of relationship with him, and ends up sacrificing herself to save him.
Agnes and Alex aren’t alone on their journey through time; other characters making regular appearances include Agnes’ devoted friend, Meg (Tanya Reynolds); Agnes’ abusive 18th-century husband, George (Nick Frost); and the enigmatic, mysterious Scipio (Jacob Anderson), who seems to know more about what’s going on than anyone else does. It’s Scipio who helps Agnes think more critically about her life (lives?) and her choices, leading her toward true growth. Lowe never loses sight of her message — or her vision — in Timestalker. She takes care in creating each era of Agnes’ existence; the costumes and production design touches are on point (especially in the 1980s-set segment), and the characters’ different roles in each life give the cast opportunities to try on all kinds of hats (sometimes literally). And as she both honors and satirizes romance tropes, Lowe ultimately subverts them to help Agnes get closer to the revelations that will finally put her on the path to real happiness. —
Team #MOTW’s comments:
Nell Minow: Alice Lowe’s wry humor, imagination, and high spirits from a talented cast make the most of Timestalker‘s limited budget. She has a shrewd sense of the mistakes women make in relationships and it is refreshing to see those issues presented over hundreds of years.
Sherin Nicole A metaphorical Monty Python from the POV of the Mses., Timestalker uses laughter as medicine. It whispers to those of us who fall too quickly, invent epic love stories inside our heads, and wonder why it’s never what we dreamed it could be. Yet, there is also the duality of bad choices, mistakes that turn our leading lady into both stalker and stalked across many lifetimes. The cast is phenomenal, but in the end, I wondered how we break the cycle of an everlasting bad romance. And that question has me shook.
Leslie Combemale Writer/director Alice Lowe’s Timestalker, which is labeled as “a historical science fiction romantic comedy”, is like a romcom gone wrong for cynical sick puppies, which in this case is a good thing. This bizarre, twisty-turny flick offers a feminine perspective from Lowe’s unique point of view. She considers the romanticizing of unrequited love, and the way women sometimes reframe idiot man babies as just misunderstood and eternally forgivable. Lowe is asking, at times tongue in cheek, at times with buckets of blood or poignancy, “can’t we learn to be better?” At least that’s my take, but each viewer who grooves with this weird-o-rama will probably see a different message.
Jennifer Merin Timestalker, a deeply quirky and intensely twisted sci-fi fantasy that probes the meaning of past lives, brings to mind the question of what it takes for us to absorb and learn from history that keeps repeating itself. In this time travel tale, the repetitious history syndrome applies to one woman’s romantic connection that sticks with her as she reincarnates through centuries of confused obsession about an elusive lover/soulmate. She keeps losing her head over love. Writer/director Alice Lowe, who also stars as the love-demented damsel, creates a uniquely cinematic absurdist surrealism that is entertaining, engaging and provocative — all within the same frames. There’s lots to interpret in Timestalker. Think of the film as, perhaps, a uniquely strange and surprisingly funny Valentine’s Day greeting that pushes the boundaries on perceptions about love, lust and possession in our individual lives and, on a broader scale, adding greed to the mix, what’s happening in today’s no exit world in which current events seem to be reasserting past trauma.
Loren King If you thought filmmaker Alice Lowe attempted something ambitious with her 2016 film Prevenge, she’s outdone expectations with her imaginative second effort, Timestalker. A trippy, fanciful, deliciously twisted fairy tale that is at turns funny, romantic and melancholy, this uncategorizable film stars Lowe as a woman who starts out at a spinning wheel during the middle ages then tumbles through time and various incarnations, all while searching for love and meaning. At times reminiscent of Sally Potter’s Orlando, with sumptuous costumes all the more impressive due to an obvious modest budget, Timestalker is the bold work of an original, visionary filmmaker.
Pam Grady: Reincarnation is no friend to Agnes (writer/director Alice Lowe). Over hundreds of years, she suffers the same fate. Alex, a comely young man (Aneurin Barnard) catches her eye. She becomes convinced he is the one but there is no happily ever after as violent death stalks her even as she continuously stalks Alex. Some may warm to Agnes’ ditzy charms, and some may even find a message about female agency in her predicament (particularly when it comes to her relationship with her own sometimes husband/sometime stalker George, played by an ill-used Nick Frost). But the single joke and its bloody punchline grow quickly tiresome in this thin, undernourished dramedy.
Liz Whittemore Alice Lowe’s latest film, Timestalker, is a commentary on the complexity of love and a raunchy female quantum leap of sorts. The same spectacular cast moves through the centuries, following Agnes, a woman who finds her presumptive soulmate and then immediately dies a horrible death. Can she learn from past mistakes and change her future? The cast is committed to the slapstick comedy and Lowe’s laugh-out-loud dialogue. Alice Lowe grounds Agnes, while Nick Frost is deliciously unhinged. Jacob Anderson’s character possesses a prophetic ability, acting as a strong anchor for Agnes’ wistful shenanigans. A perfectly cast Aneurin Barnard oozes charm, beautifully countering Lowe’s assured/desperate enthusiasm. Speaking of our leading lady, Alice brilliantly embodies the irrationality of love, bringing fierce chemistry to every scene. Lowe’s femme-centric comedy writing has continued to be a force of nature since her 2016 film Prevenge. Timestalker solidifies that dark edge. Timestalker repeats the neon and candy heart color palette of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. The editing is simply fantastic. The structure allows Lowe to run through every period romance genre out there. Timestalker is a clever take on love, fate, delusion, and self-actualization.
Cate Marquis Timestalker is a crazy, colorful, darkly funny, time-skipping British fantasy from writer/director/star Alice Lowe, that begins in 1688, where a peasant woman in rural Scotland is witnessing the execution of a heretic, with whom she instantly falls madly in love. The handsome, dark-haired man begs her to save him, and she kind of does, but dies in the process. Variations of this tragic romantic scenario are repeated across time and place, from 1790s France to 1980s New York. The scenario accumulates more characters as it is repeated, who are reincarnated again and again. Sometimes she’s rich, sometimes he’s famous, but it always ends with her death, until she’s ready to break the cycle. With a supporting role for Nick Frost, Alice Lowe’s costume-filled trip through history is quirky, creative, funny yet knowing journey to self-discovery. Timestalker is a clever, satiric, eccentric romp through time, exploring self-discovery and freeing one’s self.
FILM DETAILS:
Title: Timestalker
Directors: Alice Lowe
Release Date: February 14, 2025
Running Time: 89 minutes
Language: English
Screenwriters: Alice Lowe
Lead Performers: Alice Lowe
Distribution Company: Level 33 Entertainment
AWFJ Movie of the Week Panel Members: Sandie Angulo Chen, Betsy Bozdech, Leslie Combemale, Pam Grady, Loren King, Cate Marquis, Jennifer Merin, Nell Minow, Sherin Nicole, Liz Whittemore
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Edited by Jennifer Merin
