The Time Traveler's Wife: Review By harveycritic

THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE

New Line Cinema/Warner Bros

Reviewed for MovieWeb by Harvey Karten

Grade: B-

Directed by: Robert Schwentke

Written By: Bruce Joel Rubin from Audrey Niffenegger’s novel

Cast: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams, Ron Livingston, Arliss Howard, Alex Ferris, Michelle Nolden, Stephen Tobolowsky, Brooklynn Proulx

Screened at: Warner, NYC, 8/10/09

Opens: August 14, 2009

When Frank Sinatra sings “Gee, it’s great to be traveling,” his listeners are doubtless nodding their heads if they’ve enjoyed even the beginnings of journeying to different cultures. Then again, they say no matter where you are, you are always with yourself—which can make for disappointing moments while you’re in another country. The husband of “The Time Traveler’s Life,” Henry (Eric Bana), is a case study of being always with himself when he travels, a fate which makes him wonder why he can turn up anywhere at any time even though he never bought an airline ticket. His is a fate that can make for cheap tourism, but since he cannot control his trips, and since he arrives at his destinations without clothes or money, you can’t blame him for wanting to be a stay-at-home fellow.

His story, from Audrey Niffenegger’s tear-jerking novel adapted for the screen by Bruce Joel Rubin, “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is less within the sci-fi genre than it is a three-hanky chick-flick. That’s not a bad thing, especially if the director and writer were to wink at the audience, but Mr. Schwentke sendd the charming couple into their fragile lives without more than a dollop of humor. “I met her father, and he’s a Republican and a hunter,” remarks Henry to his alcoholic dad, Richard De Tamble (Arliss Howard)—to which dad makes a predictably sour face.

The movie opens with a bang as 6-year-old Henry, sitting in the back seat of the car driven by his opera-singing mother (Michelle Nolden), is involved in a crash that kills his mother. He is saved because just at the instant of impact he is transported to a time a few minutes earlier, where he meets himself as a thirty-something man who assures the kid that everything will turn out OK. Ultimately Henry’s key relationship is not with his mother or his younger self but with the love of his life, Clare (Rachel McAdams), whom he meets in the library where Henry works. But before you can say “Shazam,” Henry is transported to a meadow where he attempts to tell Clare, now six years old (Brooklynn Proulx), that he’s a friend. Little does little Clare know that marriage with the naked man (Henry time travels without clothes) is inevitable.

Time travel is used not so much for supernatural effects than as a model describing a love affair that must be strong enough to allow its survival while the man of the house is seldom at home. The chemistry between Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana is there, all right, and their characters do not have to worry about money since Henry can, and does, win a 5 million dollar lottery by cheating. But their love is so powerful that Henry would do anything to be normal and not subject to a genetic anomaly that will work its way through the next generation, should he and his wife have a child.

Florian Ballhaus’s photography in Toronto across various seasons is picture-pretty, and McAdams and Bana are about as handsome a couple as we can expect in Hollywood movies. The film does not make much sense, even if we in the audience suspend disbelief, and there are moments of unintentional laughter in a work that is sadly lacking in whimsy or internal logic. “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” both as Audrey Niffenegger’s best-selling novel and now a Warner Bros./New Line release, should make a big hit with women, and might just appeal to those men who happened to like “Julie & Julia” as well.

Rated PG-13. 107 minutes. © 2009 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online