Film Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife

The Time Traveller’s Wife is a boy meets girl tale with a twist.  Boy, Henry (Eric Bana) meets girl, Clare (Rachel McAdams), he is 40-ish and she is five years old.  Skip forward a number of years, and they meet again when their relationship can be considered more age-appropriate: both in their 20s. How? Because Henry is cursed with a sufficiently vague chromosomal disorder that causes him to travel through time.

But this isn’t fun “I’ll just travel five minutes into the past and put some popcorn in the microwave” time travel.  Henry doesn’t know when he will be plucked from the present, or where he will be going.  Possibly 5 years into the past, possibly 20 years into the future.  The characters quickly and inexplicably realise they are the loves of each other’s lives, and the film shows them trying to work around Henry’s condition.

Unfortunately, we see absolutely no reason why these people should love each other – no real interaction, no mutual likes or dislikes.  This is partly what (supposedly) makes their relationship so tragic: they have no control over how they feel for each other.  It’s also partly – scrap that, really – annoying.  How can we care about these characters if we don’t know them?  Henry time travels, and Clare is married to him.  Those are, essentially, their only personality traits. 

Combined with an over-earnest script and contrived symbolism, it all becomes a bit much.  Blame it on the sugar high from eating an entire bag of M&Ms, but during the emotional climax of the film, I laughed.  Out loud.  Until I cried tears of laughter.  But so did an entire row of girls in front of me, and I heard at least one or two distinctive chuckles further back in the cinema.

I did feel bad about this, however, because I could also hear the sniffling sounds of teary-eyed individuals.  Much like the novel, the film version of The Time Traveller’s Wife seems to be a polarising experience.  Some love it, some hate it.  Some people, with a distinct lack of self-control, laugh during it. 

Despite solid casting, the film drags.  With too much empty emotion there is not enough interaction to engage an audience.  The hours seem to creep by, despite Henry’s genetic disorder that sees him skipping merrily from past to future.  If only we could all be so lucky: I might have saved myself a couple of hours watching this film. 

Time Traveller’s Wife is screening nationally in Australia now

Director: Robert Schwentke

Cast: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams, Ron Livingston, Arliss Howard, Michelle Nolden

Image credits 1 & 2