Saturday, August 15, 2009

Movie Review: The Time Traveler's Wife


Last night a friend and I went to see The Time Traveler's Wife, as we had both read the book. The movie seems to be getting not-so-great reviews by critics, but I have to say that I really enjoyed it. I thought the adaptation was very well done, and the actors were very believable.










The Time Traveler's Wife, a novel by Audrey Niffenegger, tells the story of a man who spontaneously hurtles back and forth in time due to a genetic anomaly, and the woman who loves him from the time she is a little girl and first encounters the time traveling stranger in the meadow where she plays. One the one hand, it's a sweet love story, but also frustrating, as it's difficult to imagine such a tortured existence for both the ever-disappearing man and the woman who loves him. I remember finding it difficult to keep track of timelines (and kept wondering how on earth the author came up with such a complicated plot - was she on acid?), but when I finally just surrendered and stopped trying to keep track of when in time exactly the current events were supposed to be taking place, I really enjoyed the story.

It's impossible, of course, to fit an entire book into a movie, so quite a bit is left out of the movie, but it still flows. I kept wondering, though, if someone who had not first read the book would enjoy the movie as much and understand exactly what was going on. I think it might be difficult, but maybe not.

If you read the book and enjoyed it, the movie is definitely worth seeing.

4 comments:

  1. I loved that book so much. A quote that sticks with me is something about Claire realizing that Henry must have been "elsewhen". I thought that was beautiful. And I liked how Down syndrome was a small but important part of the storyline.

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  2. I read the book over a year ago and just saw the movie today. I thought the move was wonderful. They represented the book as best as they could. From what I remember the entire movie matched up to the book. Granted they didn't dig into to him working in the library and the cage that was there, or her parents but that was all just filler in the book. I was really impressed especially after just seeing my sisters keeper. What a wreck of a movie. It should have been given a different titel. you can read my review of that movie on my blog. I even have a poll going on my sidebar asking if you think the write "sold out."

    Anyway I found your blog through http://welovelucymichaela.blogspot.com/. and thought I would comment since I've both read the book and seen the movie!!

    Bravo, 2 thumbs up.

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  3. I just went and saw the movie yesterday.
    But now I really want to read the book.

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  4. I actually have a date with a friend to go see this movie on Friday - I'm really looking forward to it, since the book was so unusual and the characters so interesting.

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