Blu-Ray Review: ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ Flawed But Worth Seeing

Printer-friendly versionE-mail page to friendPDF version

CHICAGO – Robert Schwentke’s adaptation of the beloved novel “The Time Traveler’s Wife” was mostly critically ridiculed in theaters but should make for a satisfying rental this Valentine’s Day and deserves a second consideration from those that completely dismissed it at first. It looks beautiful in HD and the film’s flaws are easier to forgive at home without the expectation of this long-awaited project.

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.0/5.0

Ultimately, I wish “The Time Traveler’s Wife” was weirder. A tale about a man who travels through time but stays betrothed to his one true love should be awash in romance, magic, and surrealism. It should be poetry, not prose. And when Schwentke, writer Bruce Joel Robin, and, notably, cinematographer Florian Ballhaus allow the film to focus on themes more than practicalities, it nearly works.

The Time Traveler’s Wife was released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 9th, 2010.
Photo credit: Warner Brothers Home Video

Sadly, there’s too much effort to ground “The Time Traveler’s Wife” in logic and reality when the moments that truly work touch the heart and not the head. As movie goers, we don’t want to hear about love being powerful enough to stop any obstacle, even time travel. We want to feel it. There are enough moments in “TTW” where we do feel it to warrant a rental, especially near the Hallmark holiday, but a bit too much of it feels blandly expository, as if making us believe the plight of Henry and Clare is more important than making us feel it. We are watching a film called “The Time Traveler’s Wife”. We already believe.

The Time Traveler’s Wife was released on Blu-ray and DVD on February 9th, 2010. Photo credit: Warner Brothers Home Video

Clare (Rachel McAdams) is attached to a man who occasionally just up and disappears and not to a movie or the bar like your significant other. Henry (Eric Bana) has been a time traveler since the age of six but it’s out of his control although he is drawn to the same places like gravity. For example, he’s regularly drawn to the meadow where he first met Clare. When he meets Clare for the first time on the normal time-space continuum, she’s already been in love with him for years. Follow that? You will.

Most of “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is made up of people coming to terms with Henry’s condition - Clare, her friends (Ron Livingston & Jane McLean), Henry’s father (the excellent character actor Arliss Howard), and, of course, Henry himself.

There are beautiful moments in “The Time Traveler’s Wife” (I particularly like the way a wedding scene comes together with an elder Henry getting to say the vows to a woman he’s loved for years and a younger one bouncing back just in time for the first dance; a great tracking shot through a house and a gorgeous scene at a zoo are also memorable) that transcend the film’s overall bland tone to become something beautiful. There are elements of “TTW” that are moving like the idea of being able to see lost loved ones again, knowing that a dangerous situation will be okay, and even issues of being aware of our own mortality.

“The Time Traveler’s Wife” falls apart more on reflection than during viewing. Most of the strengths of the film were there before the filmmakers became involved: They’re from the source material. McAdams is left hanging by a script that forces her to do little more than plot development (always explaining Henry’s condition or responding to it) and Bana is dull when he needs to be captivating. “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is a near-miss. It works when it embraces the emotional magic of its concept, not when one considers the reality of its execution.

The Blu-ray release of “The Time Traveler’s Wife” includes two featurettes - “An Unconventional Love Story” (exclusive to Blu-ray) and “The Time Traveler’s Wife: Love Beyond Words”.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com