Romancefest 2019: The Time Traveler's Wife

Directed by Robert Schwentke
Screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin
Based on the novel by Audrey Niffenegger
Starring Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams and Ron Livingston
U.S., 2009

A man with a genetic mutation that causes him to randomly travel backwards and forwards in time embarks on a romance, marriage and parenthood with a woman he appears to throughout different periods of their lives.

Time travel stories have to strike a delicate balance. You don’t want to explain the rules of time travel too much because it’s inherently nonsensical and would be a waste of time, thus boring the audience with stuff that ultimately doesn’t matter. But, you don’t want to not explain the rules at all, because then the audience becomes confused or the story feels contrived or, worst case, both. So you have to have it both ways – explain just enough to get the audience to trust you, like BACK TO THE FUTURE and ABOUT TIME.

The problem with THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE is that it does next to no explaining of its rules of time travel, and the explaining it does do just creates more mysteries (it’s genetic, he loses his clothes every time he travels). In fact, the clothes thing is a good example – I guess it’s a complication built into the story to make it so things aren’t too easy, but it also reminds me of a time travel classic, THE TERMINATOR, in which we’re given a rational explanation as to why time travelers must travel naked, and there’s also a rational explanation why they can get away with it – they’re either robots or super soldiers from the future, and aren’t making a habit of time traveling for their entire lives.

Spoiler alert: the dramatic ending of the movie revolves around the lead’s death, but is preceded with the knowledge that he can travel through time to dates after his own death, so ultimately who cares? Yes, the time travel is random and can’t be controlled, so that sucks, but in general, if you can jump anywhere, death is just a minor inconvenience, isn’t it? If my Dad traveled through time, and died, I’d just wait until the next time he showed up again, which I guess is exactly what they do in the movie, but not after a lot of handwringing about the lead’s impending doom.

If you’re in the mood for a time travel romance starring Rachel McAdams, skip this one and watch ABOUT TIME instead.