From Time to Time: A Review

From Time to Time (2009)
Director: Julian Fellowes
Starring: Maggie Smith, Alex Etel, Timothy Spall, Carice van Houten, Eliza Bennett
Adapted from: The Chimneys of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston (1958)

Julian Fellowes’ From Time to Time is a film I watched on Amazon Prime that tries to blend ghostly nostalgia with historical drama. It is based on Lucy M. Boston’s The Chimneys of Green Knowe. The film has its moments, but its execution is generally poor. What could have been a touching exploration of family, memory, and loss turns into a predictable, thinly written story weighed down by clichés and token gestures to “the current year” of 2009.

The plot revolves around young Tolly, played unconvincingly by Alex Etel, who spends Christmas 1944 at his grandmother’s crumbling estate, Green Knowe. There, he discovers he can move between the present and the early 19th century, where family secrets are revealed, and ghosts guide him toward solving a mystery. The premise owes more than a little to Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden and feels like it’s been pieced together from better works of children’s literature.

The ending, in which lost treasure is found, family rifts are healed, and a ghostly parent delivers words of comfort, is so predictable it feels obligatory. It’s the kind of resolution that demands emotional investment but fails to earn it.

Maggie Smith, as Mrs. Oldknow, is one of the film’s few bright spots. She plays the matriarch with a mix of regret, determination, and wry humour. Her portrayal an elderly person of quality grappling with financial ruin is nuanced and believable. She carries the film in a way that makes you wish she had been given better material.

In contrast, Alex Etel’s performance as Tolly is wooden and surly. His lack of range makes it difficult to connect with the character or care about his journey. A more engaging lead could have injected life into the story, but Etel’s portrayal drags it down at every turn.

The film is set during Christmas 1944, but the details of the period are unconvincing. Early on, the RAF departs Green Knowe, with the suggestion that the war is nearly over. This is historically absurd. The Battle of the Bulge was about to begin, and some of the hardest fighting of the entire war was yet to come. The idea that Britain’s resources were so secure that airbases could be casually abandoned is laughable.

Then there is the apparent abundance of petrol. Private motoring was severely restricted during the war by fuel rationing. Civilian petrol supplies were cut off entirely by 1942, and even essential vehicles were issued minimal allowances. Yet characters in the film seem to have no trouble driving around. Maggie Smith even drives to the shops. This oversight undermines the film’s credibility as a period piece and reflects a lack of attention to detail.

Films from within the British Establishment must always include social messages, and From Time to Time is no exception. The character of Jacob, a freed African boy, is a clear attempt to inject some obligatory anti-racism – presumably to justify the family’s wish in the 1940s to hang onto their wealth. The execution is clumsy. Jacob is less a fully realised character than a moral lesson in human form, and his interactions with other characters are more than usually wooden.

The film also relies heavily on stereotypes in its Regency-era scenes. The wasteful foreign wife addicted to gambling, the domineering butler, and the vicious young dandy are all stock characters that add little depth to the story. It is story-telling by numbers.

This being said, the film is unusual for its lack of the almost compulsory “moment of gayness” in Establishment films. I really was waiting for the butler to jump into bed with young Sefton – whether or not this made any sense in terms of plot. Its absence was a surprise, given the film’s checklist approach to social messaging.

The film is about a family’s struggle to hold onto its estate and heritage. Mrs. Oldknow’s plight is meant to gain our sympathy, but it’s hard to feel much for a class that contributed to its own downfall. By the mid-20th century, the British aristocracy had largely abandoned its responsibilities and aligned itself with the financial interests that dismantled the old order. Instead of standing up to the financial interests that replaced them, its members often joined in, selling off their land and influence for a share of the spoils.

The film’s lament for the passing of this way of life rings hollow. It mourns the loss of an era without acknowledging the failures that led to its demise. Instead of exploring these complexities, the story goes for sentimentality, leaving the audience with little to think about.

From Time to Time is a film that tries to do too much but achieves very little. Its blend of ghost story, historical drama, and family saga never quite falls together, and its lack of attention to historical detail undermines its credibility. Maggie Smith gives a strong performance, but she can’t save a script that feels more like a rough draft than a finished work.

For all its ambitions, the film is ultimately forgettable—a patchwork of borrowed ideas and missed opportunities. It lingers in the mind only as a reminder of what it could have been.