It's 1944 Britain, and Tolly Oldknow (Alex Etel) is sent to live with his grandmother (Maggie Smith) in their ancestral country estate. For some reason, he finds that he can time travel to 1805 but nobody can sense him except for Susan (Eliza Bennett) who is blind. Both kids have their fathers away at war. Susan is tormented by her family while her protector father is away.

This is like a slow poetic drama. The most compelling story has to be the one in the past. The present day story moves along too slowly and has very little to do in the first place. What I rather have is for Tolly to just stay in the past and we follow the story 200 years ago. The story in the past is just so interesting with blind Susan and her Negro child guide. I'm sure there's a lot more in the book to expand on.

This rather uninvolving time-slip film was made by Julian Fellowes to use sets and cast members left over from his popular period TV drama, DOWNTON ABBEY. It's ostensibly an adaptation of a '50s children's book called The Children of Green Knowe, about a boy living during the Second World War who finds a way to travel back into the lives of those in Regency England. I remembering seeing a Children's BBC adaptation of the same book, made back in the 1980s, and it was a hundred times more successful than this production: spooky, creepy with a genuine sense of wonder.

FROM TIME TO TIME is subdued and subtle throughout. It has a decent cast and a not-bad script, but it lacks the oomph to make it memorable. There's nothing spectacular or scary here, and the atmosphere is non-existent. The biggest fault lies in the casting of Alex Etel as the teenage protagonist; he makes for one of the most unlikeable child leads I've ever seen. The supporting cast, including such luminaries as Timothy Spall, Maggie Smith, Dominic West, Carice van Houten and Hugh Bonneville, is excellent, but none of the actors are what you could call stretched and the story plays out with nary a twist in sight.

In 1944, the young teenager Tolly (Alex Etel) travels to the family real estate Green Knowe in the countryside of England to stay with his estranged grandmother Mrs. Oldknow (Maggie Smith). His mother went to London to search for information about his beloved father, who is missing in action in World War II. Mrs. Oldknow is trying to sell Green Knowe since she has financial difficulties and does not have any valuable asset to sell. During the night, Tolly meets two ghosts in his room and he goes to his grandmother to ask whether she believes in ghosts. Mrs. Oldknow explains that the manor has many ghosts from their family. Soon Tolly learns that he can travel to the beginning of the Nineteenth Century and he discloses secrets from the past of his family while waiting for his mother and the news about his father.

"From Time to Time" is a flawed but highly entertaining film with a naive story of ghosts and time travel. The cinematography is very beautiful and the cast has great names, such as Maggie Smith, Pauline Collins and Carice van Houten among others. My vote is seven.

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