Movie Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)

Meeting your soul-mate and future husband at the age of six is an enough of an unusual scenario on its own. But to topple that — the guy in question is going on forty when you first see each other and wearing nothing but a blanket in a hedge. As an innocent member of the audience watching this blooming relationship, you may begin to question the age gap until a significant and ever so important factor can explain everything: Time travel.

Based on the global bestseller of 2003, The Time Traveler’s Wife, directed by Robert Schwentke, lifts Audrey Niffenegger’s intriguing love story from the page to the screen in this moving and provoking film adaptation. Eric Bana proves he is more than just a poor impersonator of Jonathon Rhys Meyers as he takes on the enigmatic role of Henry DeTamble. He is found acting alongside the stunning Rachel McAdams (The Notebook) who plays the lovestruck Clare Abshire, a girl who falls in love with the ‘invisible friend for life’ she meets in her garden at the tender age of six. Bana interestingly plays Henry, the superman-wannabe, good looking and brooding librarian, with a tendency to involuntary time travel at any moment, as a far lighter, more likable character than he appeared in the novel. Leaving not only his clothes in the present, but also his loved ones, the movie follows the turbulent and eventful journey of the relatable, bitter-sweet couple as they struggle to lead normal lives, keep secrets and battle against the sour taste of the inevitability of fate.

Blending together romance with the sci-fi genre, this movie is at its best when the scenes are subtle and deceptively simple, reflecting the delicacy of a moment and the unpredictable, frailness of people’s feelings. It is created effectively through the projection of a couple’s normal everyday lives, becoming turned upside down by an abnormal situation. The Time Traveler’s Wife certainly holds a series of empowering and visual moral messages underneath it’s slightly condensed feature. Most strikingly, the idea that we should all appreciate what we have in a moment, because as time passes (and it will), it will all be over sooner than you think.

Intensely gripping, refreshingly different and cinematically powerful, this film takes us on a memorable journey, echoing stylistic and generic elements from recent movies such as Marley & Me and The Lake House while being enhanced by a heartbreaking score by Canadian composer Mychael Danna; this movie will have no distinct issues in regards to sitting itself comfortably on the shelf of a teenage girl’s DVD collection.

The movie’s enigma developed narrative flickers through numerous events in Henry and Clare’s lives and these individually dramatic and emotive scenes do not seem to clunk along at a dull pace as expected; much rather the movie miraculously glides through its two hour feature length effortlessly. Scrapping some of the favorite features from the novel, the The Time Traveler’s Wife seems to save itself with a satisfying, rounded ending to a wonky, kooky, and at times over complicated plot line. It ends on a high note — over the constant rise and fall of the character’s situations — adding a much needed light relief to the previous explosive collision of feelings of love and loss to ultimately finish with the illuminating concept of acceptance.