The Time Traveler’s Wife (**½)

Directed by: Robert Schwentke
Starring: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams, Ron Livingston, Jane Mclean, Brooklynn Proulx, Stephen Tobolowsky, Arliss Howard, Hialey McCann, Tatum McCann
Seen: September 18th and 22nd 2009 (there is reason to the madness, multiple promises)

**½ Out of ****

The Time Traveler’s Wife is based on a 2003 novel of the same name by Audrey Niffenegger. I haven’t read this novel, and according to some who did read it before seeing the movie, I’m better off for it (not for not reading it, but for not reading before seeing the movie). The basic premise is this: Henry DeTamble (Bana) travels through time, but cannot control when he leaves, or where he goes, and he doesn’t take his clothes along – so every new appearance is a quick hunt for clothing and finances, obtained whichever way is possible, theft included. In all his time travels he meets Clare Abshire (Proulx), a 6 year old girl enjoying the afternoon sun in a meadow. This is the first time she meets him, but not the first time he meets her, as when she is much older (21) he meets her for the first time when she recognises a younger version of him in a library, which is quite intriguing, as I don’t believe many romances can claim two first meetings…

The first half of the film, being the meetings and the first romantic trysts, is brilliantly done. The film starts off with a scene that apparently only occurs much later in the book – and the decision to start with this scene was an inspired one, as it gets the viewer straight into the devastating effect this ‘disorder’ must have on Henry. The scene is brilliantly filmed and choreographed, and introduces us to both the older and younger version of Henry without skipping a breath.

In getting the main plot on the road, the film does a great job, the start of the relationship between the two, the growing love between them, and the first time Henry takes Clare to his apartment are beautifully realised, and they all lay the foundation for a possibly brilliant movie. The first visit to Henry’s apartment, where he has Clare blindfolded, ordering her to count to a thousand before looking so he can quickly try to clean up, turns into a tremendously sensual scene between the two. The slightly older Henry’s meetings with the much younger Clare is also presented in a sweet way, Henry never confuses young Clare with older Clare. Their wedding also has some interesting time jumps that are cleverly dealt with by Henry.

The second half of the film left me with the distinct feeling that the script was written halfway when the screenwriter realised he had to fit the other 80% of the novel into the rest of it. The movie becomes much too mechanistic in its attempts to deal with time travel complexities, and loses the viewer’s vested interest right up to the end, where a small scene pulls back some of that lost trust again, but not enough to pick the film out of the deep waters it ran itself into. I find that it takes effort to remember the movie for its very beautiful first half, because of the way it turned out in the second half. The friend I saw the film with did read the book beforehand, and she claimed at one point that she might do a lot of crying during the second half of the film, but she never really did, as the emotional impact was lost among al the time travelling intricacies.

The movie is competently made, and there will be those who love it and cry buckets over it, but I would much rather have preferred more of what it started out as, a beautiful romance. One thought aside to close off with - the most beautiful moment in the film is not one of romance , but rather one showing a man's desperate need to talk to his mother about matters of the heart, and I was deeply moved by this - it's just a pity that this one moment had more potency than the entire romantic aspect of the movie...