The Time Traveler’s Wife – Movie Review
We have previously anticipated this movie here, and the book was previously reviewed here.Â
Before I get into the review, I should probably say that this would be a tough movie for me to like no matter how it was made, because I really liked the book, so I had high expectations and a lot of fears about how they could screw it up.  With that warning in mind, I must unfortunately report that some of my worst fears were realized. Though I still liked the movie in some ways I ultimately found it disappointing.
But first the stuff they got right: Rachel McAdams is luminous and fabulous and makes the role of Claire absolutely her own.  The cinematography is almost her equal. Those two things alone almost made the movie for me, and the little girl that plays Claire as a child, Brooklynn Proulx (is that a great name or what?), is really top notch as well, and should have been used more. Eric Bana actually surprised me by not being a complete disaster. He is a believeable, if imperfect, Henry.
But this movie could have  been so great and they just missed the boat in so many ways.Â
First, if I could scream one thing at all screenwriters it would be this: When you have great dialogue that already exists in the book, use it! The screenwriters of this movie, Jeremy Leven (The Legend of Bagger Vance, The Notebook)and Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost), should be hung for changing things that need not be changed and leaving out scenes that are brilliant in favor of lackluster replacements for no reason whatsoever. [In view of their previous screenwriting credits, however, I can't fault them so much as the producers who hired them in the first place. It seems that there was never any attempt from the very beginning to make this movie the way it should have been made.]
One line that I love from the book is when Henry travels into the future and meets his daughter Alba for the first time. She is on a school trip and runs gleefully to her Dad, whom she knows well, though he doesn’t recognize her. The school teacher is alarmed and says to Alba that she had thought Alba’s father was dead. Alba replies, “Yes, but he’s not continuously dead.” That’s a really great phrase and sums up so much of the story. Why is it not in the movie? No reason. The scene is there, just without the interesting dialogue.
Second, this book is emphatically not just a romance, but unfortunately, the movie isn’t much more than that. The science fiction element gets too little time and the fascinating debate about free will is reduced to just a couple of lines. The book has some very dark moments which are almost all gone from the movie and also the most interesting sexual parts of the story are compromised. This is almost certainly done to achieve a PG-13 rating, but serving that goal does great violence to the book, and even if the studio was dead set on staying away from the R category, that could have been accomplished with a more nuanced hand.
Another big disappointment is the soundtrack. Henry is a punk rocker who grew up on a steady diet of classical and opera. Music is a huge, huge part of the story and, aside from some throwaway references and a score that simply strikes the right emotional notes at the right time, there is not even an attempt to locate this story in the proper musical landscape. To say that this is a missed opportunity is like saying that Michael Jackson was “a little different.”
Having said all of that, this movie does get the romance part of the story right. It is still a touching movie in that respect, so if you are looking for a well-performed and well-filmed romance, by all means try this one. For me, though, I am left thinking too much about what might have been.
Posted on August 15, 2009, in Pop Culture. Bookmark the permalink. 12 Comments.
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Probably why it was so oft delayed. I bought the book after the review here for my wife. She loved it and was ecstatic when she found out it was being released as a movie. Not so much when I said what August releases usually portend…
I’m fairly certain I’m the only woman in America who hated the book. It’s one of the very, very rare cases where I didn’t even finish it…
Why gabby?
Now I want to read the book.
I don’t really remember; it’s been quite awhile since I tried to read it. I do remember being bored with it, though. Really bored.
Hmmm. Maybe the jumping around in time got to you? If you’re not interested in how that phenomenon might affect someone or their relationships, then the book indeed would be boring.
I don’t think so. Time travel wasn’t the main problem for me. I really wish I could remember what it was, though!
Loved the book. As soon as I saw the trailer I knew that they had sucked all the darkness out and made it almost entirely a romance. I’ll see it on DVD.
It’s been driving me crazy all night. What classical vocal piece is Henry’s mother singing in the car prior to the accident? It’s not from an opera. I think it’s from an oratorio and is very famous. Can someone please jog my memory?
i think she was singing a song set to the tune most people know as the christmas carol ‘lo how a rose is blooming’. here is what wikipedia says about it:
Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, most commonly translated to English as Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming, is a Christmas carol of German origin. The text is thought to be penned by an anonymous author, and the piece first appeared in print in the late-16th century. The hymn has been used by both Catholics and Protestants, with the focus of the song being Mary or Jesus, respectively.[citation needed] In addition, there have been numerous versions of the hymn, with varying texts and lengths.
The tune most familiar today appears in the Speyer Hymnal (printed in Cologne in 1599), and the familiar harmonization was written by German composer Michael Praetorius in 1609. The tune was used by Johannes Brahms as the basis for a chorale fantasy for organ, later transcribed for orchestra by Erich Leinsdorf, and by Hugo Distler as the basis for his 1933 oratorio Weihnachtsgeschichte (“Christmas story”).
The popular English translation “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” was written by Theodore Baker in 1894.
Another Christmas hymn “A Great and Mighty Wonder” is set to the same tune as this carol and may sometimes be confused with it; it is, however, a hymn by St. Germanus, 734 (???? ??? ????????? ?????), trans lat ed from Greek to Eng lish by John M. Neale, 1862.
Outstanding review. This movie was shockingly unambitious and never tried to go past the obvious despite the premise which could have for a truly epic love story with a sci-fi twist. One of those movies that could have used a big name director to make it special. McAdams shines and Eric Bana was relatively ok. In all, it was a decent romantic drama although certainly disappointing given the possibilities…