Time, when seen as a chain of events, is not an illusion. Physicists tend to forget other subjects than their own which put limits on what can actually happen.

Whether its a star or a human being, there is a deliberate chain of events that must happen for them to come into being and that chain of events goes back to the beginning of the universe. Paul Davies could not have come into existence before 3.5 billion years of evolution on Earth, his place in this chain of events that is time is set, not an illusion he holds.

The same is true for changing the direction of the flow of time. In very simple models of universes made of only elementary particles it could happen, but in more complicated universe like ours you can't put a star that exploded ten billion years ago back together or raise dead people from their graves.

Universe is not a video that can be just rewind. For that to happen, every bit of information from the history of the universe would have to be stored in the universe itself somehow and the more complex the universe, the more amount of information would be needed to be stored.

Macro-level events and objects in a universe also put constraints on the micro-level realm of particles. The micro-level of particles is not more "real" or the only one that matters when considering the nature of the universe and time. The universe is based on them, but the more complex universe they create, the more the micro-level is constrained by the macro-level.

Complex universe orders itself in a manner that severely constricts what is possible in it. That includes the concept of time.

Time arises from this necessary need for order in a complex universe, where events can't have random chain of events or there would be no complexity. Time and complexity are thus intertwined.