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Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana (with Broken Social Scene, background) in The Time Traveler's Wife.

Aug 14, 2009 By Chris Tinkham Web Exclusive

When a movie that is called The Time Traveler's Wife begins by depicting a traumatic event from the childhood of said time traveler Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana), you might begin to wonder why it's not simply called The Time Traveler. Get used to the wondering. The sci-fi romance, based on the best-selling book by Audrey Niffenegger, transpires mostly from Henry's point of view and raises a bevy of questions—about timelines, Henry's motivations, his abilities and inabilities—that never are answered.

Henry has a genetic abnormality that causes him to time travel uncontrollably during moments of stress. He vanishes from one setting only to reappear in a different year and location (limited to his own history and lifespan). By time traveling, six-year-old Henry survives a fatal car crash that kills his mother. As an adult, he returns to the scene of the accident repeatedly, but each time he is unable to prevent her death.

Henry explains that big events pull him to certain places, like gravity, but it's not clear why he is drawn to a sprawling meadow where his future wife, a little rich girl named Clare Abshire, plays alone. One of the peculiarities of Henry's time travel is that he leaves his clothes behind when he departs, thus arriving at new settings in his birthday suit. This is how thirtysomething Henry introduces himself to six-year-old Clare—naked, hiding behind some bushes. Perfectly romantic, no? Adult Henry is no playground perv, though; he's a charming and kindhearted man. He and young Clare become friends through his intermittent visits, and Clare falls in love with him. But Clare has saved herself for a doomed relationship, because Henry is unable to remain in one setting for long stretches. At one point, the adult Clare (Rachel McAdams) accuses Henry, now her husband, of forcing himself into the heart and mind of a little girl. It's a valid and unsettling point that's never justified in the film. What brought Henry to Clare at that age and why?            

The Time Traveler's Wife is so brazenly incoherent, it's almost admirable in an era when Hollywood unapologetically spoon-feeds its audience. When Clare wants to have a baby, the chance of Henry's genetic anomaly being passed to the child complicates the film to the point that it's no longer possible to make sense of the timelines or the film's precepts. Henry can't save his mother, yet he can influence other events through time travel. For instance, after a prolonged absence from Clare, he appeases her by giving her the numbers to a $5 million lottery so that she can have a bigger art studio (the rich get richer). It's impossible to keep track of what year the film is set in as it bounces through time or how long Henry and Clare have been together at various stages, although we do get to see Bana sport a series of different haircuts.

How director Robert Schwentke, who helmed the far-fetched and equally frustrating Flightplan, was chosen to direct such a convoluted screenplay is mind-boggling. Bruce Joel Rubin, noted for writing the Ghost screenplay, probably was expected to recreate the same romance-fantasy-comedy recipe, but there are no villains in this story to undermine Henry and Clare's love, only Henry's inability to stay with her. This metaphor for the transience of love, and the Homeric Penelope role that Clare plays in the story, is diffused to the point that The Time Traveler's Wife isn't an appropriate title. More pronounced are the film's spacious interior sets, which must have set back the production a pretty penny. For proof that a low-budget time-travel film can be romantically compelling, check out Brad Anderson's Happy Accidents with Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio.

Bana and McAdams (who's starting to look eerily like the recently gaunt Jennifer Garner) lend enough star-crossed charisma to see us to the finish, obscuring some of the film's lapses along the way. There is even one emotionally dramatic moment late in the film that is genuinely spine tingling. Because of its puzzling premise and affable leads, The Time Traveler's Wife plays like one of those films that entice you while channel surfing, enough so that you want to re-watch it from the beginning. Only, in this case, there's no beginning to turn to, other than Niffenegger's book.

It will be interesting to see whether The Time Traveler's Wife attains any type of cult status in years to come. "What-were-they-thinking" films with sci-fi elements sometimes are welcomed into this arena, especially ones that are deemed to have been misread or misinterpreted upon theatrical release. Perhaps an enterprising blogger or sci-fi obsessive will find logic in the film's timelines and publish them. They would make a valuable supplementary text or DVD extra.

www.thetimetravelerswifemovie.com

Author rating: 4/10