The Land Of Sometimes

Two lonely children; a missing father; an old fashioned watch with a note attached reading ‘in case of emergency.’ Of course this film is going to involve a magical adventure. It’s distinguished by the presence of A-list stars and by Terry Davies’ outsize, West End musical-style score (with songs by Tim Rice). This is fortunate for it, because there’s little else to make it memorable.

The kids are twins. Elise (Alisha Weir) comes first because she was born three minutes earlier; then there’s Alfie (Andrei Shen), who seems to be trapped in a permanent state of following her. She throws herself into situations with very little thought and he, naturally more cautious, has to get her out of trouble. When she holds the watch in their bedroom at night and wishes that, instead, they could go to the Land of Sometimes – where their mother has told them that dreams can come true – he is drawn along in her wake, as much out of worry as hope, because he, at least, has the wit to recognise that the strange man who turns up calling himself the Wish Collector (Ewan McGregor) might not be 100% trustworthy.

From his love of purple to his stovepipe hat, the Wish Collector looks every inch a storybook trickster, but thankfully for the children he has more heart than most. This is not a particularly scary film, although it has its moments, and the central plot is designed to ramp up the tension. It’s only after they’ve landed on the mysterious island of the title that the children learn it will disintegrate and collapse into the sea if they don’t work through their alotted wishes within a strict time limit. That won’t kill them, but it will mean that they’re trapped there forever.

There’s hardly a need for additional urgency at this stage. Elise is eager to explore. Compared with other such worlds, the island doesn’t really look all that fantastical. There’s a preponderance of purple and lime green, an mountain which looks like a stubbed cigarette, and a token assortment of fantastical creatures, only one of which we get to spend much time with: when Elise naively feeds a fliggle, it becomes her loyal friend. (No doubt some children will worry about what will become of it when she’s gone.) Then there’s a spider-like giant robot with tries to trap the children so that it can get hold of the watch. There’s a hint early on that it might not be as hostile as it seems, and that its dislike of the wish collector might be taken as a warning, but sadly this thread is never developed, and the story remains strictly two dimensional.

When the children are inevitably separated, things briefly get more interesting. Elise has to find her own way out of scrapes (admittedly with some help from the fliggle), whilst Alfie has to summon up the courage to exert some real agency of his own. The young actors are competent enough and will give young children some challenging things to think about, though old ones are likely to be less easily absorbed, especially if they have some wider experience with the fantasy genre. In places the film feels skeletal, the bones of the story barely covered, let alone properly fleshed out.

Adults may be entertained by Helena Bonhem Carter as a well witch with a love of slime. Terry Jones, sleepwalking through his final film, provides the voice of the watch. Perhaps the most touching performance comes from Mel Brooks as the postman whose narration bookends the story, if only because he's still making an effort and, at 99, he’s unlikely to deliver many more.

The film carries its characters from A to B well enough, and allows them room for a little growing up, but with all this talent involved, one might have wished for a little more.

Reviewed on: 18 Mar 2026