Movie review: The Time Traveler’s Wife

by Alex Bentley

The ratio of romantic comedies to romances every year stands at about 99 to 1. Romantic comedies are light, breezy, and for the most part, throwaway films that are virtually guaranteed to draw a decent crowd. Romances, on the other hand, have to deal with all the heavy intricacies of love and relationships, which means that a lot more effort has to be put in toward making them good.

That's why the majority of them are based on books, as using the built-in readership of a successful novel gives the film an automatic audience. The Time Traveler's Wife more than qualifies in that respect, as the book has sold over 1.5 million copies since 2003. The movie adaptation will need every single one of those readers, though, as all semblance of believable romance seems to have been stripped away from the story.

Henry (Eric Bana) mysteriously developed the ability to spontaneously time travel after a car accident at the age of 6. As a grown-up, he repeatedly visits a young Clare (Rachel McAdams), even though he's not in control of when or where he time travels. Clare has spent her whole life being in love with the disappearing stranger, so when she encounters him as an adult, it isn't long before their union becomes inevitable.

But, as one could surmise, being the wife of a time traveler has its drawbacks. Appearing and then disappearing may seem romantic when Clare is a kid, but living with a guy who takes his leave at the drop of a hat, especially during significant life events, is a tad frustrating. And then there's the idea that Henry's ability to time travel may be a genetic condition, which may or may not hinder Clare's ability to have a baby.

It's easy to see how the plot would have appeal on the written page. Books (especially 550-page ones) can take their time, giving a slow build to the romance. A movie, even a two-hour one, doesn't have that luxury. Even so, the approach director Robert Schwentke and writer Bruce Joel Rubin take seems substandard. Henry and Clare's first kiss comes in the first 5-10 minutes of the film, giving the audience no time to invest in the relationship. Soaring music accompanies every possible expression of love from the beginning, which is just pushing too hard when there's nothing there yet.

The film gets better as it goes along, with the second half an improvement on the first, but the damage has already been done. If a romance doesn't have the romance, then what does it have? One could conceivably stay for the sci-fi aspect of the film, but after the third or fourth time Henry time travels, your head is already spinning. For instance, Henry doesn't visit the young Clare until he's in his thirties, but he meets the old(ish) Clare in “normal” time when he's in his twenties, and therefore doesn't recognize her. Trying to keep track of when Henry visits a person and what their relationship is like at that time is exhausting and detrimental to the audience committing to the film.

Not even the acting can save the film. Bana, who can normally be counted on to give a decent performance, never seems to sell the anguish that someone like Henry should be going through. He's a man literally unstuck in time, but hardly any effort is made to understanding how he's come to terms with his condition. McAdams is fine, but because Clare rarely gets to spend any significant period of time with Henry, her talents are only shown in short bursts.

The Time Traveler's Wife wants to give its audience a romance fantasy, but what it delivers is a fantasy of a romance.

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