The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler’s Wife

“You’re my best friend. I’ve loved you my whole life.”

Sometime a movie is more than just entertainment. Occasionally the lives portrayed on screen help me to deal with—or avoid—my own. Such was the case today. My grandmother passed away yesterday. I believe she had a long and fulfilling life (80 years old, married for 62 years, four children, ten grandchildren and 27 great grandchildren) but that doesn’t make her passing any more appreciated. I miss knowing she’s only a phone call away and I worry about my mother not having hers in her life anymore.

I didn’t want to stay home today, but I didn’t really want to do anything either. Melancholy. I just wanted to sit. But, what better place to sit than in front of a big screen? So, I asked my oldest daughter if she wanted to go see the movie we’d been talking about since it came out a couple of weeks ago and she was in. Yay!

The Time Traveler’s Wife was first a book by Audrey Niffenegger, which I read a few years ago. On the way to the theater I was thinking about the book and how the relationship between the two main characters spanned several decades. I started to think about the decades my grandparents spent together; six of them. I can only imagine what they experienced alongside each other. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever heard the story of how they met, so I started to pick up my phone thinking I’d just call my grandmother and ask her to share the story…then I remembered I couldn’t call her. Ever again. I drove to the theater with tears in my eyes and a sob catching in my throat. Heartache.

I tried to think about the book and predict how the movie might measure up. Unfortunately, I really couldn’t remember it. Trying to discuss it with me, my daughter reminded me of some of the more pertinent parts when she read it a few weeks ago. The good thing about not being able to remember anything more than the plot of the book is that I couldn’t compare the movie to it negatively. The bad thing, I couldn’t rely on my memory to fill in the movie’s holes.

Henry (Eric Bana) is a time traveler married to Clare. He travels back in time and meets Clare as a child, so she knows him before they even meet in the present, though he has no recollection of their meeting as it doesn’t happen until his future. Confused?!

Unlike the book (which only confused me in the beginning) the movie confused me from beginning to end. I know I was trying too hard to understand the art of time travel, but I just couldn’t let it go. I’m still bothered by the fact that Henry was able to be in two places at once—seeing himself interacting with loved ones in the past—some times, but not in others; seemed so inconsistent. Bothersome.

I tried to focus on the romance between the two, but it seemed less like the unfolding of a romance and more like a love that was put in place. Clare claims to have fallen in love with Henry as a child, but they don’t really show how that happened. How does a six or eight year old girl fall in love with a fortysomething man who shows up naked and talks to her for about five minutes before he disappears again? Sounds more like a police report than a love story, doesn’t it?

Although, I didn’t understand why Clare loved Henry, the fact that she did was evident. Rachel McAdams seems to play romantic parts easily. Her eyes and facial expressions seem to convey exactly what her character is supposed to be feeling. Who needs dialogue when you have Rachel McAdams? And, while I’m not a huge fan of Eric Bana, he made me believe Henry’s love for Clare, as well.

The challenge their love faces seems to surround Henry’s time travel; not knowing when Henry will be home, Clare’s loneliness when he’s not and how to start a family when a child may share the same genetic disorder that makes its father disappear unwillingly. These challenges are accepted, if not overcome.

If you’re able to keep from being distracted by the specifics of time travel, it really is a wonderful love story. Completely unrealistic says my cynical self; totally romantic says my idealistic side. It’s the latter that made me love this movie in spite of its flaws; but I suppose that’s what true—and unconditional—love is; knowing that the positive far outweighs the negative and loving someone despite his/her shortcomings.

My grandmother loved my grandfather much like Clare loved Henry. We should all be so lucky.

There are no more words.

Bottom Line: The Time Traveler’s Wife is slightly flawed, but loved in spite of it.