Delayed Reaction: The Time Traveler’s Wife

Premise: A woman falls in love with a man who travels in time, despite all the complications involved with that.

 

I don't know. A movie about Rachel McAdams falling for a time traveler. That doesn't sound like something I'd like.

 

But really, with the amount of love I have for About Time, I was going to get to this movie eventually, even though it's very much a different movie. And yes, a lot of this Reaction is going to be about why I like About Time better than this. If you thought that wouldn't be my angle, you've been reading the wrong blog.

 

The Time Traveler’s Wife is more of a straightforward romance movie. About Time is sold as one, but it's more about how to live your life that just the romance. Time Traveler’s Wife treats the time travelling as an antagonist. About Time uses is as a tool to make a larger point. Most importantly, Time Traveler’s Wife is much more about the mechanics of time travel. That's where it runs into trouble.

 

Time Travel movies are a mixed bag. They all have their own logic and rules. I tend to prefer the movies that get less concerned about the actual mechanics of it (unless they get super into it like Primer). In About Time, you just go to a dark place and do it. In Back to the Future, you get the DeLorean to 88mph. I actually like a lot of time travel movies, but I tend to like the stories and they just happens to include time travel. The Time Traveler’s Wife is a movie puzzle. Most of the movie is spent figuring where Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana are in relation to each other in the timeline. And, with terms like "grooming" coming into prominence in the last decade, the uneasiness of a grown man bonding with a young girl who eventually becomes his wife is even more pronounced. I felt robbed of an actual romance in the movie, because neither character was ever in the same place. About Time has a similar issue with Tim's attempts to woo McAdams, but there's always that first dinner when they hit it off to fall back on as evidence that he wasn't just tricking her into liking him. There's no point when both McAdams and Bana are on the same footing in this movie. The idea of the story is terrific. I love the sound of a love story across time in which all roads lead back to the same place, but it's really hard to execute that. I imagine the book is more successful at it. In movie form, it's a lot harder to edit it all together coherently.

 

Side Thought: OK. Bana's powers involve him showing up in places naked, and I'm supposed to believe the way he dies is a hunting accident, not because the wrong person in the city mistakes him for a predator? This bothered me more than it should've.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend