What would you do if you discovered that your nice husband was a time traveller who moved backwards and forwards through the fourth dimension whenever the fates decreed?

The answer, in Robert Schwentke’s adaptation of the best-selling novel by Audrey Niffenegger, is that you’d continue to love him and hope for the best.

Eric Bana is the time traveller and Rachel McAdams is his wife. Both they and the makers of the film treat the whole business neither as a comedy nor as a slice of sci-fi but as a serious tale about the difficulties of loving. The screenplay is by Bruce Joel Rubin, who won an Oscar for Ghost — though this does not have the weepie value of that popular romance.

What it does have are two good performances, some expert cinematography from Florian Ballhaus and an air of intensity that keeps you gripped. Our poor time traveller finds himself talking with the young girl he later marries, sees his mother on the subway long before she has died in a car crash and even has intimations of his own death.

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Aside from his wife, nobody believes him when he relates these stories until he disappears in front of them — which doesn’t half puzzle the cops when he’s picked up for attempted theft.

Do we believe? Almost, but not quite. Even so, this is a decent romance, which tries its best not to go as soggy as Ghost at the end.