Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Time Traveler's Wife Review: with spoilers

After all those posts, all those trailer views, it's taken me over a week to review the movie I couldn't stop talking about. Even got a virus on my computer for.

How lame am I?

So. I thought I would give my opinion on the movie of the summer (for me), the Time Traveler's Wife.

Love, love, love, love, LOVED it.

I went with my friend Melanie, and we were both crying in the first 5 minutes. There is an awesome scene that never happened in the book with Henry and his mom that made me want to bawl my little eyes out. Both Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams became Henry and Clare for me. It was seamless. Perfect.

The movie is less than 2 hours, and they had a lot to pack into every minute. But it never felt hurried (to me). I think that knowing the background of the movie from the book (which I doubt many of the critics did, which is why they just did.not.get.it.) was helpful, but not essential. There were a few scenes that I wondered, "Do people know why this scene is happening?" Like, for instance, a scene which shows Clare cooking a turkey and Henry congratulating her. Would people have understood that she knew he was going to die, so she had to learn to cook? Did they want to sob at the poignancy of it like I did? Probably not.

So, these are my opinions, in rapid succession.

The essentials: For me, the essentials were there. Henry gets frostbite. He gets shot. They win a few million dollars. She is an artist, he is a librarian. They meet in the meadow. His dad is an ass. They have trouble getting pregnant. All good, good, and good.

The bad: But, there isn't a Mrs. Kim. I missed her character so much. The car accident scene with his mom didn't make sense to me at all. They didn't explain why he had to run so much. Gomez didn't have a lot of scenes, and Ben didn't exist at all. I wished they had left in the scene with Clare being 80 and waiting for Henry. Still waiting. It bugged that she accepted so easily in the ending scene that she wouldn't see him again. I wish they had had the scene with them at the concert. I wished there were more scenes with Alba and Henry after he died, in Alba's real time. The one post-death scene was insufficient.

The awesome: the way you felt trapped by time, how things that have already happened (even in someone else's past) still will happen. The way Henry and Clare's love translates to the screen to feel so real, and so tragic. The way they changed the scene when Clare gets pregnant. Alba meeting her dad for the first time. The scene with Alba in front of the store before they had met her.

I could probably go on and on (surprise!) but I won't. I loved this movie, and will definitely see it again, and buy it when it comes out. I might even just watch it on those days when I need a good cry. So, what did you think? Favorite scenes, or things that just bugged?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I skimmed this post just long enough to make sure you loved it, but I'm going to skip the rest until I've seen the movie. I'll be back...

Amy Sorensen said...

What Britt said!

Lucy said...

I loved the movie too. Sadly, I saw it with my husband who didn't. Wish I could have gone with you and Melanie!!!

Apryl said...

Wait, they left out the LAST SCENE? WHAT? That's, like, my favorite part of the book!