The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler's Wife is a romantic drama directed by Robert Schwentke, adapted from Audrey Niffenegger's bestseller of the same name. Adapting a novel with complex elements and undertones to the silver screen is a daunting task and director Robert Schwentke struggled to compromise between satisfying readers of the novel and making the movie accessible to people unfamiliar with the book. Overall, the movie has some significant directing and screen writing flaws but does make for an unpretentious and above-average romantic tragedy thanks to its two compelling leads.

Sypnosis: The Time Traveler's Wife is the time-defying love story of Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana) and Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams). Henry is a librarian afflicted with a genetic disease that causes him to travel through time more or less randomly. Henry's random and unpredictable escapades are often dangerous, terrifying and sometimes life-threatening ordeals because he ends up buck-naked and starving in unknown places and times. For those reasons, Henry keeps himself in top physical shape and taught "himself" all type of survival skills such as pick-pocketing, street fighting, or picking locks. After a random while, he always goes back to his "present" but is largely unable to affect his future. At age 28, he meets 20-yr old Clare Abshire. He doesn't know her but she has known him since she was 6 and has been waiting for him all her life and will do so the rest of her life...

The main weaknesses of the movie can be traced back to trying to fit the book into 107 minutes. Director Robert Schwentke and screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin appeared a bit over-matched and took the path of least resistance, oversimplifying the plot and characters. The book was a bit confusing at times because of its particular narrative structure and the movie inherits the same problem. Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin made some compromises to keep the movie from becoming excessively long or inaccessible to its PG-13 audience. The main events and characters of the book were translated to the big screen although non-essential characters such as Kimi or Ingrid were completely omitted and the ending was slightly altered (and I liked it). The supporting characters are a mere passing thoughts, the key relationship between Clare and Gomez is one-dimensional. Even the two main characters, Henry and Clare, are under-developed. Ideally, the direction of the movie should have been given to a director with better credentials, and the movie extended up to 140 minutes to develop the characters fully and take advantage of the terrific cast.

Despite those shortcomings, The Time Traveler's Wife is one of those movies you can't help but like. It is at heart a simple star-crossed love story with a refreshing sci-fi twist that touches on universal themes such as fate/free will, true love, and loss. A story that focused on the depth of the characters' love, not its showiness. Their will to move forward and enjoy every minute they have with each other before Henry's impending fate. This meant more close-up shots and a deeper and more realistic exploration of what it means to be Henry and Clare. The movie succeeds in moving the audience thanks in big part to moving performances from the two leads, who surrendered themselves fully to the premise of the novel.

The Time Traveler's Wife features the graceful Rachel McAdams as the title character. Most will have missed her terrific performance in the 2008 indie the Lucky Ones and this puts her back on the radar for mainstream audiences. Beside matching the description of Clare in the book, McAdams has an unusual ability to make her characters feel real against all odds. Overcoming an underwritten character, she carries the emotional weight of the movie and was luminous portraying Clare's spirit and unyielding love for Henry's despite being riddled with some terrible lines once again. Will someone give Rachel McAdams a meatier role for God's sake??? Eric Bana was a big surprise, exceeding my expectations and making for a very solid Henry. Although he does not fit the physical description of the book (Henry is more runner than football player) Bana's Henry was tormented, introverted, poignant, and more importantly, had considerable chemistry with his co-star. The only issue I had was that Henry was mostly a one-note character. The supporting cast was solid albeit given very little opportunity to be memorable. Gomez (Ron Livingstone) was a pivotal character in the book but merely a passing thought in the movie. Jane McLean as Charisse, Arliss Howard as Henry's father, Stephen Tobolowsky as Dr. Kendrick all did a fine job with the small parts they had.

The cinematography has a beautiful stark and cold quality to it which reinforce the tragic nature of the movie. The movie was beautifully shot by Florian Ballhaus and is the strongest attribute of the movie behind its leads. The crafty camera-work using motion and placement selection gave a particular tone to his scenes and Schwentke used that to his advantage in the film, giving the movie a light touch of fantasy. He created a nice immersing atmosphere that really highlighted Clare and Henry's impending fate. The CGI effects of Henry's time traveling are unspectacular but first rate while the overused musical score was melancholic, adding to the tragic tone of the movie.

Enjoy the Time Traveler's Wife for what it is: an endearing love story with an unusual sci-fi premise. It may not be exactly like the book, it may have been darker and heavier on the sci-fi, and it may have been so much more with better direction. Even so, the premise of the story, and the perfectly-cast leads make this movie well-worth the ride and will keep your imagination lingering long afterward.

B+: Boasting terrific performances and chemistry from Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, the Time Traveler's Wife has some flaws but is a charming, endearing and bittersweet romantic drama nonetheless.

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When I entered this one, I thought it would be another Kate Hudson/Matthew McConaughey, Richard Gere/Julia Roberts,Diane Lane, wuvvy-duvvey-cutesy-wootsy boring predictable love movie.

I was completely wrong. We've all seen movies that involve time travel and this one is near the top.

It shows the reality of a relationship between two individuals who have to deal with the negative effects of time travel in a close relationship.

This movie had me near tears at the end, which is truly sad since I haven't cried since the movie Beaches.

The only thing I didn't like about this movie was that I found myself trying to figure out this mans time travel and if it made sense. There are a few loose ends left untied.

Other than that, the two leads were solid and the movie is entertaining. I wouldn't rush out to see it, but it is definitely worth renting.

Something I often find bothersome in 'time travel fiction' is that there is usually a large chunk of the storytelling dedicated to the tedium of explaining 'how' time travel works, particularly when time travel is merely a device to aid the storytelling. We don't really need to know the science behind it because, simply put, science can neither logically explain its paradoxical nature, nor prove or dispute its possibility. "The Time Traveler's Wife" never makes pretenses to the science behind it, rather it centers its focus on the story.

At the heart of this film is a love story and the complexities that people bring to their relationships. What I liked most was its metaphorical allusion to the distance in relationships and how the important people in our lives stay with us even after they are gone. The scenes between Henry and young Clare were especially moving because they took literally the notion of feeling like you have known someone your whole life. It's kind of like when you share stories from your past with friends and significant others, retelling them time and again until your experiences are indistinguishable from theirs, except in the case of Henry and Clare, the experiences are real if not linear.

Just go and watch it. Decide for yourself if you like it. Just don't dwell too much on the technicalities. After all, Scientific Theorists have been slamming their heads against the wall on the matter of time travel for centuries. Take the story for what it is and enjoy the ride.

I was a massive fan of the book and had been following the production of this movie for a long time anticipating the release date. I had set my expectations pretty low so as to not be disappointed and decided to just enjoy the film for what it was.

I was overjoyed by how true to the book the film stayed, only varying in a few unimportant places, the film dared to be as heart breaking and sad as the book and did not feel the need to justify the logistics of the time travel instead choosing to summarise it in the first scene.(People who feel this was not explained do not have the imagination needed to fully enjoy this film).

The ageing of Eric Bana's character was seamless and it was easy to tell whether he was a younger or older version of Henry and Rachel McAdams brought out the inner frustrations of Claire's character with a great sensitivity showing the difficulties of the relationship.

Overall, this film was not a let down to a lover of the book, I enjoyed it as an extension of the story of Henry and Claire and found the emotions real and well developed. A definite must-see for all fans and those who haven't read the book but who just enjoy a good love story!

Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana star in "The Time Traveler's Wife," from 2009. Directed by Robert Schwentke and based on the novel by Audrey Niffenegger, it tells the story of Henry DeTamble.

Henry (Eric Bana) works as a special collections librarian. He has an anomaly he was born with which allows him to travel in time. He never knows when or where he's going.

When Clare Abshire meets him, she invites him to dinner -- she has been in love with him since she was six years old. He finds out that he visited her often when she was a child. They fall in love and marry.

It turns out that being married to a time traveler isn't all it's cracked up to be. Henry always leaves unexpectedly and sometimes is gone for a while, and it can happen at any time.

Good movie, with wonderful performances by both leads, who have good chemistry. Rachel McAdams to me is scarily like Jennifer Garner. She's lovely and sympathetic as Clare, and Bana, a fine actor, is very effective as Henry, whose visits to the future don't always make him comfortable.

Depending on your mood, this bittersweet story can be a real tear- jerker. It got to me and I cried, I admit it.

I think the tale says that we have to deal with what we're given, even if it's not always convenient. We are not always the masters of our abilities.