New Line Cinema | 2009 | 107 mins. | Rated PG-13
A word piece of advice to anyone who might be considering marriage to a time traveler: you need the patience of a saint. The Time Traveler’s Wife emphasizes the problems involved in such a marriage. Though co-stars Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams have turned in notable performances in other films, their lack of chemistry together, and an often illogical plot makes The Time Traveler’s Wife a disappointing, and at times, surprisingly boring film. Why the time traveler’s clothes don’t travel with him adds to the head-shaking nature of the story, but at least Bana gets to show off his buffed-up body.
Directed by Robert Schwentke (Flightplan) and based on the best-selling novel by Audrey Niffenegger, the movie is a fantasy-romance about a woman whose husband keeps flying through time. The husband, Henry DeTamble (Bana), has a rare genetic disease that causes him to spontaneously disappear and travel through time. He claims he doesn’t know where or when he’ll end up, except that he’s always naked on the other side because he can’t take his clothes with him. As a result, he always has to steal clothes, or the money to buy clothes. Also, when he ends up somewhere, he doesn’t have the power to change anything that’s already happened, For instance, if he learned that his favorite cat was going to die on March 1, 2011, he would just have to live, dreading that day. He also seems conflicted about the best way to use his condition. At one point he’s working as a lowly library clerk and living in a hovel; later he’s showing Claire how to win a multi-million-dollar lottery, and they’re living in a mansion. Sometimes he remembers who and what he is when he time travels; sometimes he doesn’t. No matter what, he always returns to exactly where he started, usually anywhere from a few days to a few weeks later.
The wife, Claire Abshire (McAdams), is an oddly constructed character. The filmmakers want us to believe she’s a patient, loving, spouse, willing to put up with her husband’s erratic comings and goings. The problem is, one minute she understands, the next she’s flying off the handle about him being gone all the time. Now, she’s known him since she was six, and knows that his condition is uncontrollable; therefore, she knew what she was getting into when they got married. Later, Henry explains to Claire that they should not have children because he’s afraid of passing on his condition to any offspring. This revelation not only causes her to throw a fit, fit but prompts her to trick Henry into having a kid, anyway. Now, she’s making her way into bitch territory.
If you haven’t already guessed, The Time Traveler’s Wife is a film fraught with inconsistencies. There are many, but I’ll point out just a couple more: characters show up that we practically never see again. Like Henry’s best friend, Gomez (Ron Livingston). Henry meets Gomez; Gomez learns of Henry’s condition; Gomez disappears until the end of the movie. Next, we meet Henry’s alcoholic, violinist father (Arliss Howard), and then he, too, disappears for most of the rest of the story. A lot of things simply don’t make sense in the context of the story.
The Time Traveler’s Wife is one of those films where you either buy into the fantasy hook, line, and sinker, or you’re left out in the cold, trying to make sense out of the story’s incomprehensible qualities. It’s an old fashioned love story that wants the audience to suspend belief. If you can do that, give this one a try, if not, don’t bother.
The New Line video engineers use a VC-1 codec and single-layer BD25 to reproduce the movie’s 2.40:1 ratio picture on Blu-ray disc. Overall, the picture looks surprisingly dark and oversaturated, with soft detailing in close-ups. In its favor, the picture is very good at reproducing grass, trees, leaves, and flowers in deep, rich colors, with a light, natural film grain giving the image texture. Fleshtones do look quite natural.
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, does its job. With such a dialogue centric film, this track really doesn’t get a chance to show what it’s capable of. Mostly, we get dialogue and soft background music. There are maybe a couple of times when we hear any deep bass, transient impact, or noises in the rear or side speakers; nevertheless, that’s about what one should expect of a romance film, I can’t complain.
English and German the spoken languages (despite what the keep case says); German, Dutch, and Spanish subtitles (again, despite what the keep case says); and English captions for the hearing impaired.
We don’t get much in the way of special features:
• An Unconventional Love Story (HD, 26 minutes) Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams discuss their characters, the nuances of the tale’s fractured timeline, and the relationship that unfolds on screen.
• Love Beyond Words (HD, 21 minutes) looks at the adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s novel and the challenges the filmmakers faced in translating her ideas for the screen.
The Time Traveler’s Wife is currently available on Blu-ray, DVD, On-Demand, and Digital Download.
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