A lot of people seem to love Richard Curtis’s films. He has two directing credits in addition to this one, Pirate Radio and Love Actually, and a slew of writing credits from Four Weddings and a Funeral to Notting Hill to Bridget Jones’s Diary to War Horse.

While intermittently entertaining, most of the films feel a little slight to me.

And then, there’s About Time. I have a bias against time travel narratives. I mean, traveling in time? That’s a steep barrier to willing suspension of disbelief, especially in what is essentially a romantic comedy.

I went into the film with a sense of the positive buzz surrounding it and with an open mind (really, I wanted to see a love story that would make me feel something good and gushy), but I left the cinema disappointed and even peeved.

The source of my irritation is all about authenticity. How can it be true love when one partner has most of the power to call the shots and organize events to his favor without revealing who he really is to his beloved because he possesses a nearly limitless supply of do-overs?

Doesn’t this take manipulation to extreme levels? Of course it does. That’s not romantic but a gross imbalance of power. It’s scary.

And, I saw the film just before Thanksgiving with my friend Laura, another feminist media scholar, who turned to me as the credits began to roll and said, “Another story about men. Men who get to travel in time. Why are all the stories still about men?”

Why are so many of the stories – even those geared toward a female audience – still about men? And, why are men rewarded for hiding their authentic selves from everyone, including their partners, except for the time traveling fathers who initiate them into the magic of it all when they reach the right age?

Sigh.