RATING: 8 out of 10

BestFlick.com now dishes out the lowdown on The Time Traveler’s Wife, an August offering by New Line Cinema starring Eric Bana (Star Trek, Troy) and Rachel McAdams (State of Play, The Notebook). This is a film adaptation from the book of the same title written by Audrey Niffenegger and directed by German filmmaker Robert Schwentke, who last worked on the big screen in Jodie Foster’s airborne thriller Flight Plan (circa 2005).

If you’ve read the book, you probably will agree that the premise of the story – albeit conducive to metaphysical and intellectual discussions – is downright ridiculous. Henry DeTamble (Bana) is a Chicago librarian that is afflicted with a genetic abnormality, one that causes him to “time travel”. Lest you start thinking that this is way awesome, there are actually a couple of problems to this – first is that he doesn’t know to when and where he will be travelling (he can’t control it, obviously). Second, he can’t carry his clothes with him when he travels, so yes, it is quite a bummer to be travelling through time, dropping in on places and times unknown completely naked.

The ever-beautiful Rachel McAdams plays Clare Abshire who actually meets Henry as a child, in a meadow behind their home. The child Clare actually is quite taken by this time traveler, who was hiding in some shrubbery, in desperate need of clothing. She falls in love with Henry, who promptly disappears (read: disintegrates) in front of her. Not to worry, the handsome naked guy says to the young child that there will be a lot more times they will meet. And that they do.

Scene From The Time Traveler’s Wife

Although the naked time-jumping does bring about the expected chuckles from the crowd, it is the seamless interweaving of timelines that actually allows them to follow the story coherently. The next time we meet Clare, she bumps into Henry in a library and from there they begin their joint journey into love and relationships.

Or so they tried. One of the more poignant ideas of the book and the movie, whether they allude to real men who leave, is that you cannot propose to build a relationship with someone who just isn’t there. And so it really is the troubles, the little joys and successes, but mostly the troubles, that draw in the crowd and cause some very wet hankies.

Job well done to the actors, who absolutely convinced as they portrayed their love on screen. If there had been any hint of non-commitment from both Bana and McAdams, then the film would have absolutely failed. As such, their zeal for the roles should carry over to any person who has experienced love and lost it, and found it again, and lost it – which is actually most of us. Bravo also to Schwentke, his decision to fully focus almost 90% of the screen time to the couple was probably made in pragmatism, but it turned out quite well. People who have read the book might whine about how Henry’s friendship with Gomez, played ably by Ron Livingston, was not given enough development. But the kudos to the director and to the cast as well, firm in their commitment to highlight this most unusual of relationships, for making quite a tear-jerker of a movie.

Most men were probably sucked in by the title, thinking this had a bit of sci-fi in it. Make no mistake about it, this is mush in its purest state – but one the women will probably be able to convince the guys to watch with them. This reviewer, convinced of the competence of the acting and the filmmaking, did not regret being dragged into the cinema for this – I actually liked the film.

Filed under: Movie Reviews, New Movies