Timestalker review – reincarnation romcom with nowhere to go

Sometimes a passion is so powerful that it extends across centuries; death itself is not enough to extinguish it. One such love is that of Agnes (Alice Lowe, who also wrote and directs Timestalker), who is reincarnated throughout the ages and destined, in each new life, to fall in love with the same handsome stranger (Aneurin Barnard). There are a couple of problems: one is that no sooner has each incarnation of Agnes met her beloved than she dies, horribly. The other is that the devotion is not reciprocated. Agnes’s love interest regards her at best with indifference and at worst as a restraining order waiting to happen.

It’s a fun premise, but Lowe’s follow-up to her deliciously nasty 2016 debut, Prevenge, is disappointingly underpowered and slapdash. The main directorial decision seems to be to drench everything in bubblegum pink; the gleeful savagery of her first film and Lowe’s usually impeccable comic timing have been mislaid along the way.

• In UK and Irish cinemas