Photoshoot: Somewhere In Time 40th Anniversary

"Is it you?"

This month marks the 40th anniversary of one of my favourite films, Somewhere In Time.

Based on Richard Matheson's 1975 novel Bid Time Return, it is a science fiction romance guaranteed to make me cry every time and one of the most realistic time travel stories I have ever experienced (the original novel features a medical explanation that grounds it in reality, whereas the film relies on suspension of disbelief to the very end and is all the more heartbreaking as a result).

It is hard to describe Somewhere In Time without spoiling it, but it begins with a mysterious elderly woman approaching a drama student (Christopher Reeve) in 1972, placing a pocket watch in his hand and begging him, "come back to me". In 1980, now a playwright, he stays on Mackinac Island and becomes fascinated by a vintage photograph of an Edwardian theatre actress (Jane Seymour). Her appeal is so great that he becomes obsessed with going back in time to 1912 to meet her, which he achieves through a form of hypnosis. They meet, they fall in love and... I'll leave you to discover the rest for yourself. 

One of the recurring themes of the film is the Mona Lisa-esque photograph, featuring Jane Seymour with an enigmatic smile that is explained through the course of the story. I have wanted to recreate it ever since I first watched the film many years ago. I grew up watching Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and Jane's beautiful, natural long hair was one of the inspirations for my own. I may be a proud Welsh girl but I was actually born in Ashford, Kent so I also have the same English Rose complexion.

Somewhere In Time features a beautiful score by John Barry which has me welling up within a few bars. Add fabulous performances by Jane Seymour, Christopher Reeve (who always exuded a melancholy in every part he played) and Christopher Plummer and you have a recipe for success that is further topped off by the direction of Jeannot Szwarc.

In many ways the film reminds me of James Cameron's Titanic, which contained a similar sense of foreboding and inevitability throughout the film and was set in the same era.  There are also comparisons to Highway To Heaven and that fantastic first season of Ghost Whisperer. Sadly, Somewhere In Time did not achieve anywhere near the same level of success. It was released in the same week as The Blues Brothers and coincided with an actors' strike, which meant that publicity was minimal. However, it later became something of a cult classic thanks to television screenings and video releases. If you have an ounce of romance in you and can watch a time travel story without feeling the need to pick it apart, I urge you to give it a go.

I would say thank me later, but you've already done it ;)