Time Traveller's Wife

Its funny when you are reading a book and the movie that is showing on the in flight entertainment system is the same one.  In fact, I have been wanting to see Time Traveler’s Wife ever since I started reading the book and more importantly ever since a friend of mine said, “Massive movie buff eh.  And you had no idea that the book was already made into a movie”? Now that’s what you call a little embarrassing.  Not terribly embarrassing but just a little bit.  I was now caught between a situation where the movie would reveal to me the end of an quite well written book where I could not help but picturise how it would look on the big screen. But my curiosity got the better of me and I went right ahead with the movie instead.  A reasonably well spent couple of hours I must say although it came at the expense of ruining the suspense.

Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana) has a genetic disorder.  It enables him to travel through time.  Yep.  You heard me right.  The disorder manifests itself in times of acute stress and is magnified if he has been “under the influence” i.e. has a higher probability of occurance.  The disorder first came to the fore when Henry was 6 years old.  He was traveling with his mother, Anette DeTamble (Michelle Nolden) on Christmas Eve.  Anette is a famed singer.  Unexpectedly, an accident occurs that takes away Anette’s life but in the excitement, Henry finds himself in a totally unknown place - naked and mighty cold. And in the next few minutes he is back to the scene of the accident in the same state but not in the car but on the sidewalk watching in horror as his mother’s body is pulled out of the mangled remains of the car.  Which is why Henry never celebrates Christmas like most people do – understandably so.

Clarie Abshire (Rachel MacAdams) is Henry’s wife - in the future.  Henry’s illness typically takes him to places or people that is he most familiar with.  And the first time he meets Claire is when she is a 6 year old @ the meadow close to her house.  He appears out of nowhere and a curious Claire thinks that aliens have landed.  Henry manages to convince her that it is no such thing and introduces himself to her.  This marks the beginning of a friendship that will eventually, as mentioned earlier, turn into marriage.  Remember that at the time Claire is 6, the true Henry is only about 14 and somewhere else in the world.  The Henry that meets Claire is 30+. 

Yeah, it all sounds extremely confusing I know.  And hence a word of advise – read the book before you see the movie if you can.  Director Robert Schwentke is known for movies such as FlightPlan and RED (which I missed last week) – both apparently as convoluted as his family name.  TTW is no different.  I guess he has a knack of looking for difficult topics to convert into a movie.  In his attempt to recreate Audrey Niffenegger’s novel, he has not been able to bring to life some points – especially the times when Henry finds himself in a different era.  The movie doesn’t portray the pain that he goes through at all.  It also rushes through several portions of the process of building the friendship with Claire through the early years – a fact that is very crucial to the overall construction of the relationship between the two.  Schwentke was probably more eager to get the movie done in under 2 hours rather than do justice to the entire topic.

In the acting department, Eric Bana is as intense as always in his portrayal of Henry and Rachel MacAdams does a decent job of bringing to the fore the frustrations of Claire through the time of building the relationship and her miscarriages thanks to the disease being genetic.  Overall, TTW is a reasonable movie.  Nothing brilliant.  Ensure that the word of advise is followed.  I give it 6 on 10.