Kritiken

Conceptually, this film is of course déjà vu all over again for viewers who’ve enjoyed other recent waltzes through similar territory... Still, there’s a likeable lightness of touch to The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things, an amiable sense of modest ambitions fulfilled.

It’s unflinchingly romantic and what it lacks in the substance of character it makes up for in its knowing tone and ability to subvert certain expectations. It’s doubtful you’ll be shocked by any major event in the film, but it’s the ability of “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” to surprise you with the emotional resonance that ends up being its biggest strength.

Sci-fi that fully explains itself is never really fun, but “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” throws terms like “temporal anomaly” and “singularity” around before eventually settling on an “everything happens for a reason” ideology that is somewhat unfulfilling.

Shot with slick cinematography — including some genuine eye-popping long takes — and set to cozy series of pop music cues, the movie’s gooey main gimmick brings sufficient cinematic bravado to a monotonous concept, creating a curious dissonance between filmmaking ambition and rather pedestrian themes.

Last year, “Palm Springs” proved that the time-loop conceit from “Groundhog Day” still had some laughs in it. “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” shows it’s a perfectly fine pretext for teenage treacle.

Set in a sunny privileged suburb, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is undemanding, pretty and determinedly family-friendly; there are no drugs or violence and the only gratuitous graphic images are of some product-placement Doritos. But even for a film about time loops, everything feels overly familiar.

The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things wouldn’t fall anywhere near the bottom of a time-loop power ranking—it’s a divertingly fizzy bit of PG-13 puppy love. But its characters are basically stick figures of unblemished youth, pretty virtuous from the very start, and so their astrophysical dilemma never accumulates any dramatic or comedic urgency.

This John Green-lite fantasy for the young-adult crowd holds many sequences that sparkle and shine, but a few that stumble and sag as well. Yet the feature’s genteel, sweet spirit and radiant lead performances rescue it from forgettable mediocrity and genre familiarity.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things holds a contained, idealized world – a trove of romcom enjoyment and small treasures I had no problem looping through.

It stays well within the scope of the YA tale as it marvels at the little pleasures that make reliving a single day ad infinitum bearable... Viewers who haven't soured on the format yet could do much worse than this sweet entry.