First of all, it's a completely silly, inane, simple-minded movie with no special purpose. Having said that, I still managed to watch until the end and pass my time. The thing is, I'm already 50, so I watched "Groundhog Day" in my 20s when it was in theaters, and at the time I loved that movie. Since then, some films have tried to repeat the formula, I watched one or another of them, but the same effect was never repeated, it wasn't the same thing, and I myself never looked for it to be, "Groundhog Day" was a great film and so it was good. Perhaps the best among those that I happened to watch was "Before I Fall" (2017), even so it was no wonder, a film rating 5 or 6 out of 10.

Lo and behold, today I watched this unpretentious "One More Time", I saw that the same formula was being repeated, in an even more silly way than previous attempts, until in the middle of the projection direct references were made to "Groundhog Day", including showing a scene from the film playing on videocassette, and somehow that captivated me, making me follow until the end.

I only have a more negative reservation with the end of the film, not because of what happens in itself, as it was totally predictable and expected, but because of the simple way it was made, without any elaboration of the script or scene that would bring any emotion, which is what expected at the end of this type of film.

So that's what I have to say to you, in case you haven't watched it: the film is silly, cheap, unpretentious, futile and adds practically nothing, but if you like the formula and want to see a film that at least assumes itself as a repeater of it and pays homage to the original, at least that will be worth it.

I love time loops and other character-driven time travel plots. And it was decently entertaining, though I prefer last year's Back to 15.

On the surface, One More Time doesn't seem to do a lot with this setup. But if you stay around long enough, you find a very interesting theme; nostalgia within the past. Amelia and Fiona were to dig up a time capsule at their 18th birthday, which puts the 18th birthday post an earlier event to be nostalgic about. Even when Amelia goes back to her 18th birthday, her friendship with Fiona is already a semi-distant memory. With no opportunity at reconciliation. The closest they get is when she watches Groundhog Day with her, but even there it feels very awkward. When trying to force a making up with Fiona in the subsequent time loops, she fails. I was very much expecting the time loop to end with her dropping her new friends for Fiona, doing the generic Groundhog Day resolution about character growth and making up for mistakes.

Instead, the film brings home two very different messages; firstly, that the past is irreversible, and secondly, that time is a continuous dimension, not a bilateral scale of 'the (happy) past' and 'the (miserable) present'. Which also explains that Fiona in the present is not resentful to Amelia anymore, as enough time having passed since their falling out, adding a somewhat optimistic element. If Amelia would have reached out to Fiona at the bar in the beginning, maybe they could have reconciled, dug up the time capsule together and this entire plot would not have happened.

So in a way, this film is very much deconstructive of the dominant time loop plot from films like Groundhog Day, where the character has to grow or make up for their mistakes in order to escape. That being said, on a thematic note it is very close to what I expected the entire film. It still has to do with Fiona, they just don't resolve it similarly. Which would be fine, if only it wasn't so insanely obvious for so long. That's a major misstep, how obvious it all is and how long it takes Amelia to realize. Realizing she is back to her 18th birthday also takes super long, when this is explicitly stated to her various times already. Fiona is so obviously set up and there are no red herrings in terms of theme to throw you off. In fact, this should be clear from the very start of the time loop, as she enters it while trying to read what Fiona put into the capsule.

Speaking of that, the reveal of Fiona's time capsule wish was nicely set up, as it becomes slowly obvious right before it is revealed and makes a lot of her behavior earlier make sense.

However, what does Fiona's wish have to do with anything? Why did she have to find it out specifically? Amelia dropped her best friend, that's tragic enough, and enough for her to feel bad and want to make up with Fiona. What can she do with knowing the wish? Why couldn't the resolution just be her realizing what she did ánd as I just said that there is no way of making up easily? As it is now, it is subvertive, but it makes little sense. And maybe the ending could have also been better if it ended a few scenes earlier, maybe with the characters smiling at each other, so as to keep it a bit more ambiguous as to if enough time has passed.

I felt I have to write a review, because after I watched the movie, I read the comments here, and I couldn't disseagree more with the reviews that says it's a terrible movie. Maybe this movie is not for everyone, but as a 28 years old woman, I could relate with her a lot, or at least with her 40 years old self. During the movie I was thinking about my past, about the people I spent time with, so I could reflect in my past self a lot. Also I loved to see the 80s-90s outfits here. It was a light movie, but with meanings- at least for me. I liked the ending too, you can't see a lot from the old movies, but it's deffinitelly could happen back there. This movie brozght me for me some time to think about myself again. So I really l recommend this movie for anybody :)