CinePhillyist Reviews... The Time Traveler's Wife

So, um, I don't get it. The Time Traveler's Wife is a highly-praised reality-bending romance, beloved both by critics and many of my friends. I've seen people push the book earnestly into somebody else's hands, saying, "Trust me, you'll love it." Sure enough, they would love it, and tell their friends, and so on. Now that said beloved novel has spawned a mopey, over-literal film adaptation, I can ask what I didn't ask then: why should I care?

I mean that question honestly. Certainly heroine Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams) has a complex life, thanks largely to the fact that her husband (Eric Bana) will, involuntarily, travel backwards or forwards in time, waking up nude in a strange place, where he's forced to scrounge for clothing and shelter until he's returned to the present. But the emotional complexities of the relationship—in which one might suddenly encounter their adult lover as an eight year old child, or leave a fight with their husband and run into a younger version of same unaware of any conflict—are sufficiently outré that the story is more disconcerting than moving. Amidst these bizarre circumstances, McAdams and (particularly) Bana seem to flounder for lack of emotional grounding, and no wonder.

Director Robert Schwentke's clumsy, literal approach to the material doesn't help matters either. He has persistent trouble establishing a consistent tone, and particularly in early scenes the film toggles between whimsical romantic fantasy, comic slapstick and dramatic angst. (One scene features Clare struggling with the uncertainty of her marriage only to have her husband abruptly appear with the winning lottery number for that night, undercutting the drama.) The movie's also consistently plagued by Schwentke's inability to work with child actors. The precocious little overachievers from Central Moppet Casting manage to stop the film dead whenever they're on screen.

I'm happy to admit that I could be wrong on this one. Perhaps, despite the fact that I cry every time I watch The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, I just don't have sufficient romance in my soul. (I can report that many people at the screening I attended seemed to be really moved.) But to me, the set-up is more alienating than tragic. Stanley Kubrick could have done something with this story that would really make you think.