Timestalker (2024)

Timestalker (2024) is a British comedy movie written, directed, and starring Alice Lowe, who has acted in several iconic British comedy movies and TV series including Hot Fuzz, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, The Mighty Boosh, and spent three years as a regular on Horrible Histories. In this feature film, Agnes falls in love with the wrong man which causes her to die — and then gets reincarnated and falls in love with him and dies because of him over and over again, with most scenes set in 1680s Scotland, 1780s England, and 1980s Manhattan. Overall, it’s a funny and thoughtful film — not laugh-out-loud funny, but amusing, as various actors reincarnate along with Agnes.

The costumes were designed by Rebecca Gore, as she’s credited, but she seems to go by Becky. Gore has designed a number of short films and other smaller projects, plus worked in the costume department on Daniel Deronda and The Great. Gore did a video interview (linked at the end of this post, since I’m going to quote from it several times) with The Empty Theater Club, in which she explained,

“There was a lot of research and sourcing with costume houses because we [had] quite a modest budget… We hired most of it so there was a lot of time spent in the costume houses pulling stuff for the characters and then there was also a lot that needed to be made because there’s a lot of very pivotal moments…”

Although we sometimes flash to other periods, the core first half of the movie is set in 1688 and 1788. Gore told the ETC, “With the more sort of ‘period’ period stuff, 1600s and 1800s, we kind of keep within the period and then you kind of work with your color, so that sort of defines, and it’s in some ways a little bit more straightforward” — although at the same time, she felt, “The campier the better, like everything was turned up to 11.”

Indeed, Agnes’s 1688 ensemble is a relatively straightforward take on 17th-century dress in that it’s a boned bodice with long sleeves and shoulder wings over a full skirt. As she’s a middling-class rural woman, there’s no fancy ruff, just a plain cap to cover her hair:

Compare to these images of a middling-class Englishwoman and a Dutch servant from the era:

Agnes’s love interest is Alex, played by my least-favorite Aneurin Barnard (who is only my least-favorite because he looked like Frodo in several early roles). In this period, he’s an unsuccessful itinerant preacher whose only interest in Agnes is that she’s his one follower and may make him immortal by remembering him:

In the 1788 section, Agnes is now married to an awful but rich man. However, she’s unfulfilled and can’t figure out why. I was super impressed with her wardrobe: fitted robes à l’anglaise with proper front closures! She’s in blue here, and as Gore mentions in the video interview, it was director Lowe’s idea to play with blue when Agnes is sad and pink when she’s in love.

Her hair is gorgeous, and while I didn’t like that it’s an obvious wig, they used that for comic effect (which is par for the course with this period).

Color me impressed that they got the back right, with a low, looped-up, wide ponytail and various curls, separate from the big frizzy front and sides!

Important side note, she has a pink cat:

Agnes meets Alex again, and this time he’s an unsuccessful and unexciting highwayman. Nonetheless, she’s absolutely sure he’s The One, while he’s totally oblivious and only interested (yet again) in his own fame (or lack thereof).

There’s a key party scene where Agnes wears an over-the-top, ha-uge wig that’s heart-shaped — no, it’s not a period shape, but there are literal heart references throughout and it’s essentially a joke about how ridiculous Agnes is when she decides a random stranger is The One(TM):

Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones, Interview with the Vampire) plays Scipio; in the 17th century, he’s assisting with an execution, and now he’s Agnes’s servant with a lot of strong opinions about how ridiculous she’s being.

Comic great Nick Frost (Galavant, Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans, The Nevers, Seize Them! — but you probably know him best from Shaun of the Dead) plays Agnes’s husband in this section — who was her dog in the 17th century. According to Gore, Frost was a last-minute casting decision, which caused some challenges for costuming him:

“We had him on board two weeks before shooting. We knew everything that we needed for him, like his ball costume which is this really flamboyant goals thing… We knew we wanted all those things and we knew we wouldn’t find them in costume houses so they ended up being a make… I put our little costume SOS on some of the WhatsApp groups… [requesting] any tailor that has worked with Nick in the last year and somebody lovely came forward who worked with him… She gave us a pattern and we adapted that for the suit… We got a wonderful tailor who was an 18th century whiz who was a recommendation from Sharon Long who is the designer on The Great… to whip this into shape in two weeks.”

Of course, the 1980s scenes are the most fun, because to our modern eye, it’s such a ridiculous period. Gore said, “I think with the ’80s there was much more to play with… There was much more changes and there’s a much bigger story arc for all the characters.”

At first, Agnes and Meg (a fellow villager in the 17th century, and her maid in the 18th, now her good friend) are dressed very Lady Di/Sloane Ranger:

In this incarnation, Agnes is yet again obsessively in love with Alex, who now is a once-famous but now-fading New Wave rockstar à la Adam Ant (although his music is very David Bowie). As she pines for him, Agnes goes very Working Girl while Meg goes lesbian feminist:

But then she suits up in full New Wave gear as Scipio (in this life, Alex’s manager) arranges her to meet Alex, which is, of course, a disappointment:

This is the life in which Agnes figures out that maybe constantly falling in love with someone who doesn’t give a toss about her — and pre-deciding someone is your soul mate — might not be the best idea. She gets ready to marry the current incarnation of George, and of course the costume team had fun with the ’80s wedding outfit. According to Gore, “With Agnes’s wedding dress in the ’80s we knew we needed two of those, so I sourced a wedding dress pattern, this big sort of poufy kind of meringue… We got two of those made because we knew that she was going to be doing a lot of stunts in them…”

There are brief flashes to other periods, including sort-of Celtic and 1840s, but they’re not on screen enough for me to grab any images. And I won’t spoil the ending, so I’m not going to discuss what happens after the ’80s! But all in all, this one is definitely worth a watch, both for the costumes and the entertaining plot.

You can watch that full interview with costume designer Rebecca Gore on YouTube:

Have you seen Timestalker? What did you think?

 

 

 

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