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2021, Drama/Romance, 1h 20m

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Watch Time Is Up with a subscription on Prime Video, rent on Apple TV, Vudu, or buy on Apple TV, Vudu.

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Time is up videos, time is up   photos.

Vivien is a highly accomplished student, with a passion for physics and keen to get into a prestigious American university. She seems to live her own life as a mathematical formula that drives her to look at her own happiness as something to be postponed into the future. Roy, on the other hand, is a troubled and problematic young man who, due to a trauma suffered as a child, sees his desires continually hindered by a past that seems to constantly haunt him. But mathematics too has its variables and as always happens, life manages to weave events together in increasingly surprising and unexpected ways. Indeed, an accident will force our protagonists to come to a stop and reclaim their lives, and finally start living in a present that perhaps will prove to be more exciting than any predefined formula.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Original Language: Italian

Director: Elisa Amoruso

Producer: Marco Belardi

Writer: Elisa Amoruso , Patrizia Fiorellini , Lorenzo Ura , Elisa Amoruso , Lorenzo Ura , Patrizia Fiorellini

Release Date (Theaters): Sep 9, 2021  limited

Release Date (Streaming): Sep 24, 2021

Runtime: 1h 20m

Distributor: Vertical Entertainment

Production Co: Leone Film, Lotus Production, RAI Cinema

Cast & Crew

Bella Thorne

Roberto Davide

Emma Lo Bianco

Jay Natelle

Head Neurologist

Giulio Brizzi

Sebastiano Pigazzi

Nikolay Moss

Giampiero Judica

Elisa Amoruso

Patrizia Fiorellini

Lorenzo Ura

Screenwriter

Marco Belardi

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Time Is Up’ On Amazon, Where Bella Thorne & Her Real Life Fiancé Star As Angsty Teen Lovers

Where to stream:.

• Time Is Up (2021)
• Bella Thorne

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget’ on Netflix, an Acceptably Amusing Sequel That Lacks the Usual Aardman Special Sauce

7 movies like ‘totally killer’ if you loved the comedy horror film, 7 movies like 'through my window' to watch if you're in search of más amor, bella thorne says disney nearly fired her over a bikini photo at 14.

In  Time Is Up , now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, real-life couple Bella Thorne and Benjamin Mascolo star as a dedicated physics student and a bad boy swimmer who find themselves unexpectedly falling for one another after her uptight boyfriend neglects her. Set in an unidentified suburbia and romantic Rome, Italy, Time Is Up  wants to show us that it’s never too late to learn to live life to its fullest. (I think?). 

TIME IS UP : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Vivien (Bella Thorne) is “serene”. Happiness is overrated, after all. She’s got a nice enough boyfriend, Steve (Sebastiano Pigazzi), a star swimmer, a supportive best friend (Bonnie Baddoo) by her side, and loving parents who seem to only want the best for her (even if her dad is traveling a lot more than usual). Vivien’s got a passion for physics, and she’s currently studying for a big exam that will potentially make or break her college future. Roy (Benjamin Mascolo), one of Steve’s swim teammates, meanwhile, struggles to keep his focus in the pool, thoughts of his late mother and his tumultuous relationship with his father swirling around in his head. They’re preparing for a big swim meet in Rome that’s now two weeks away, after which Roy might know what his future holds, and Steve promises to be a more attentive boyfriend to Vivien.

In the weeks leading up to the meet, a lot happens; Vivien realizes her parents’ marriage isn’t as happy as she thought, and she flakes on her big exam, too stressed and frazzled by revelations about her parents to take it. Her relationship with Steve only becomes more strained, and when he doesn’t show up to a Halloween party, she unexpectedly bonds with Roy – but only for a moment before he bails to keep training for the swim meet. In an effort to revive her relationship with Steve, she flies to Rome during the meet to surprise him. When she can’t find him at the hotel, however, she ends up spending the day with Roy, who is happy to show her his native Italy. Sparks fly between the two as they grow closer, but with secrets poised to be revealed at any moment and the future at stake, their happiness together may be short-lived.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?:   Time Is Up  might remind you a bit of the  After   movies,  The Kissing Booth , and alllllll the other bad teen movies with ridiculously soapy twists and turns out there.

Performance Worth Watching: Gotta give this one to Rome. (Yes, the city in Italy.) It is the only thing worth watching in this movie.

Memorable Dialogue: There are a lot of lines in  Time Is Up  that are totally nonsensical or just unintentionally funny, but “Are you serious? The day I almost died, you can’t remember what I was wearing?” might take the cake.

Sex and Skin: Some sexy pool fantasies, under-the-covers masturbating, and some hazy, cut-to-black stripping down and sex.

Our Take:  Time Is Up  is one of those movies that gets a little more silly every time it tries to be serious. From its faux-profound physics-related opening and closing narration to dramatic confrontations with little-to-no actual stakes, it’s honestly hard to tell what’s going on in this movie at all. This is probably the least of the film’s sins, but the title is incredibly vague and means almost nothing in relation to the film’s story, and the message at the heart is also unclear. Who are these people, and what’s really at stake here? Why is everything so dramatic? And *what* is this big test she’s taking? We’re given such little information about anything that the stakes are never appropriately raised, leaving us with a strangely wooden and unemotional viewing experience (despite the film’s attempts to tell us just how IMPORTANT these things are).

With a nonsensical script, stilted, self-serious dialogue, and robotic performances,  Time Is Up  doesn’t really make any case for itself. Even some of the shots of Rome feel cheap, which is sad, because it’s obviously one of the most beautiful places in the world. Maybe it was fun for Bella Thorne and Benjamin Mascolo to love it up on screen in a way that’s usually reserved for our Instagram feeds? I’m glad they had a good time, at least. It’s more than I can say for any of us forced to sit through the jumbled, unimaginative mess that is Time Is Up , a movie so devoid of substance and story I wonder if calling it a “movie” is too generous.

Our Call:  SKIP IT. Full of wooden performances, stilted dialogue, and a climax so ridiculous you can’t help but laugh, Time Is Up  is a forgettable mess.

Will you stream or skip the Bella Thorne/Benjamin Mascolo romance #TimeIsUp on @PrimeVideo ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) January 3, 2022

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines, hogging the mic at karaoke, and thirst-tweeting. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski .

Stream  Time Is Up  on Amazon

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Time Is Up (2021)

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Common sense media reviewers.

Teens in complicated romantic triangle; language, sex.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

"Love can't last forever." "Trust what you feel.

Steve is a vindictive liar. Vivien is a loyal girl

The attitude here suggests that being gay should b

Someone is hit by a car and selective amnesia resu

A teen couple take off their shirts, lie on a bed,

"F--k," "s--t," "ass," "bitch," and "d--k."

A local gang is involved in drugs. Underage teens

Parents need to know that Time Is Up focuses on the drama accompanying teens heading for college. A romantic triangle involves a closeted gay/bisexual boy and someone who feels inadequate because of his humble socio-economic circumstances. The movie is an Italian production, in English, shot partly in Rome,…

Positive Messages

"Love can't last forever." "Trust what you feel. Love doesn't need to be proven."

Positive Role Models

Steve is a vindictive liar. Vivien is a loyal girlfriend until she learns she has been betrayed. Roy is pessimistic about his future but protects a bad guy's secrets.

Diverse Representations

The attitude here suggests that being gay should be hidden and that gay men should have girlfriends, and lie to them, in order to conceal their true selves. In this case, a gay youth threatens someone who knows his secret. A White girl's best friend is Black, offering the cast's only person of color with any significant lines.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Someone is hit by a car and selective amnesia results. Flashbacks murkily show a drowning. Although the relationship appears to be consensual, an older man in a position of authority is having sex with a younger person. Their power disparity suggests poor decision-making on the part of the older person. A gay youth afraid of being outed threatens another student with dire consequences. Young gang members harass young women and break into a home. Youths fight at a party.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A teen couple take off their shirts, lie on a bed, and kiss. A teen couple strips to underwear and start kissing in a pool. A married woman is having an affair. She's seen kissing a man at a restaurant. An older man in a position of authority is having sex with a younger person. No nudity is shown. A woman changes her clothes -- removes her top and seemingly her bra -- in a taxi. The tops of her breasts are seen. A teen girl is seen in bed, presumably masturbating.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

A local gang is involved in drugs. Underage teens drink alcohol. Someone smokes a joint.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Time Is Up focuses on the drama accompanying teens heading for college. A romantic triangle involves a closeted gay/bisexual boy and someone who feels inadequate because of his humble socio-economic circumstances. The movie is an Italian production, in English, shot partly in Rome, but the characters are presented as American. Teen sex is mostly suggested but teens are seen kissing and taking their shirts off. One boy has an affair with an adult male and kissing is seen. A married woman has an affair. A woman changes her clothes -- removes her top and seemingly her bra -- in a taxi. The tops of her breasts are seen. A teen girl is seen in bed, presumably masturbating. A teen smokes a joint and underage drinking fuels both a fight at a party and a romance. Language includes "f--k," "s--t," "ass," "bitch," and "d--k." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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• Kids say (2)

There aren't any parent reviews yet. Be the first to review this title.

What's the Story?

Vivien ( Bella Thorne ) is a high school student who loves numbers. She's studying physics and, in a voiceover, suggests that people are either like atomic particles, or not. TIME IS UP also focuses on two high school swimmers, Steve (Sebastiano Pigazzi), the team's fastest, and tattoo-covered Roy (Benjamin Mascolo), who lives on the wrong side of the tracks. If he can't improve his times, there's no hope of a college scholarship, he's often reminded, and he'll have to work at his dad's garage. Steve and Vivien are a couple, but Steve has been disappearing, not calling or texting when he should. Vivien suspects her mom is having an affair and trails her to find Mom indiscreetly making out with her boyfriend at a local restaurant. Vivien is less astute about her own love life and Steve's affair with his male swim coach. Roy has seen the pair kissing but keeps the information to himself, which doesn't prevent Steve from threatening Roy. When the swimmers head for a meet in Italy, Vivien hops on a plane to surprise Steve but ends up spending the day with Roy and kissing him. When she finds Steve, he's in bed with his coach and the trauma sends Vivien into a dark street, where she's hit by a car. How will everyone recover from this messy situation?

Is It Any Good?

Everything about this is disappointing, from the throwaway attitude about how people grow, mature, and make decisions, to the complete lack of dramatic tension from start to finish. Incompetently directed, edited, and acted, Time Is Up feels like what might result when a group of people with short attention spans collaborate. What is the nature of the "big test" in physics that Vivien needs to take, and what does its outcome determine? Without that information, the audience feels nothing when Vivien misses it. But no worries, she just takes it later, problem solved. Roy's dramatic arc is equally flat. He underperforms as a swimmer but it turns out all he needs to do is really, really try, and suddenly he can beat the team's fastest competitor. Life is just that easy. A voiceover offers irrelevant and contradictory metaphors from physics, meant to telegraph that Vivien is smart, but that's like putting someone in a pretty dress and expecting us to accept that she's a talented fashion designer. Nothing else Vivien does supports the notion of her exceptionalism.

Another puzzle: why was Mascolo, who has an Italian accent, cast as an American? His English is good but was there no American actor who could play this role? More problematic, Thorne radiates superficiality. Not a word she utters feels believable. As a role model for young girls, her disturbingly immobile face sends the message: emotions that can result in facial expressions are forbidden to anyone who wants to be "beautiful." It's bad enough that none of the actors look young enough to be high school students, but do 18-year-old girls living at home just hop flights to Rome on the spur of the moment? That notion may serve the rickety plot, but it doesn't mimic reality. The movie's only redeeming feature is the score, which includes two covers of the Bob Crewe, Bob Gaudio, Four Seasons hit Can't Take My Eyes Off You , as well as a catchy duet, Up in Flames, nicely sung by Thorne and her fiancé Mascolo.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about what this movie is trying to convey about growing up. What are some examples of struggles teens experience?

Why do you think Steve hides the fact that he is gay? Do you think he's bisexual and truly loves Vivien or is struggling to conceal his true self? Why does it matter?

Vivien talks about her love of numbers. Do her actions in life in any way reflect that passion? Does her passion play any role in the movie's action or outcome?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : September 24, 2021
• Cast : Bella Thorne , Benjamin Mascolo , Sebastiano Pigazzi , Nikolay Moss
• Director : Elisa Amoruso
• Inclusion Information : Female directors, Female actors, Pansexual actors, Latino actors
• Studio : Front Row Filmed Entertainment
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 80 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : March 31, 2022

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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