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The Time Traveler's Wife |  | Director: Robert Schwentke
Actors: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams, Ron Livingston, Jane McLean, Arliss Howard
Studio: Warner Bros.
Category: Movie
This item is no longer available
Rating:  125 reviews
Sales Rank: 6364
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 108 Minutes
ASIN: B0030RZEKG
Theatrical Release Date: August 14, 2009
Release Date: February 9, 2010
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| Synopsis:
"The Time Traveler's Wife" is based on the best-selling book about a love that transcends time. Clare (Rachel McAdams) has been in love with Henry (Eric Bana) her entire life. She believes they are destined to be together, even though she never knows when they will be separated: Henry is a time traveler--cursed with a rare genetic anomaly that causes him to live his life on a shifting timeline, skipping back and forth through the years with no control. Despite the fact that Henry's travels force them apart with no warning, and never knowing when they will be reunited, Clare desperately tries to build a life with her one true love. |
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 125
 Hmm...I wanted to like it ((may have a spoiler or two)) September 5, 2010
LuvBooks (DC)
I like Rachel McA and I am so-so with Eric Bana ('Hulk' notwithstanding), but that wasn't enough for me. I've never read the book, so I can't comment on what was missing or changed. I don't read a ton of books or watch movies using time-travel, but this one was a little hard to grip. I didn't really understand the movie until I went to the trusty IMDb boards. Basically the main thing you need to know is (((((((SPOILER COMING UP)))))))) is that there's a Past Henry, a Present Henry, and a Future Henry. HOWEVER, it is ALWAYS the PRESENT for whoever (Clare, Alba) in whatever timeframe he's in. So for example, when he meets 6 yr old Clare...that's HER present, but he's a FUTURE Henry. When he goes back, he's PRESENT Henry with PRESENT Clare. Also, regardless of everything, "life" has already happened or (for 6 yr old Clare) is scheduled to happen.
Or something like that. Honestly, my mind still hasn't totally grasped what I watched.
The movie was easy enough to watch, and one of the things I found interesting was that Future Henry never tried to influence past events. For example, he "meets" his mom on the train (FUTURE Henry meets the mom of 6 yr old Henry--again MOM'S present), but doesn't indicate to her that she's going to die. Also, he doesn't try to influence the outcome of his own tragedy. However, at the same time, when Clare got the winning lottery ticket, he told her that she was going to win. So for me, it seemed like the movie influenced the events that it wanted to.
Again, "life" in this movie is going to happen regardless and the knowledge that Henry doesn't alter anything sort of makes for a confusing experience. Sometimes a jumbled mess. So the idea that just by being there Henry alters history is non-existent. Apparently, he's also unable to know where/when he will be when he travels, although he conveniently comes to the rescue (wedding day and the vasectomy day) on a couple of occasions. One other thing that wasn't clear to me was at the end (((((SPOILER COMING UP))) when Henry travels to the future and sees Alba and Clare and tells Clare not to wait for him. Is this before or after Alba informs him of his death? And does that also mean that eventually he will stop appearing to them...once Present Henry actually dies? I guess I'd just be curious to know if death ends the time travel bc if Alba is 11...he should be dead and in theory, Clare shouldn't be waiting for him. Right?
Who knows. When the credits rolled I had tons of questions. The performances were decent, and I especially loved using two sisters to play Alba at ages 4/5 and 9/10.
 infuriatingly stupid September 4, 2010
Caraculiambro (La Mancha and environs)
One of the dumbest movies I've ever seen, featuring a complicated but ultimately stupid plot. I had to stop it about once every fifteen minutes on account of being so dumbstruck by its inanity.
It's a time-travel story. Sure, all time-travel stories have fatal contradictions at their core, but the best ones (e.g., Heinlein's "The Door into Summer") can at least get some good mileage out of the premise before things break down, as they inevitably must.
But this movie doesn't manage get an inch of mileage. Instead the viewer is assaulted by the contradictions full on; they're shoved right in his face to the point where it's impossible to think of anything else. Chiefly this is a result of their having made the script too complicated.
I supposed I would be more forgiving if the filmmakers had had enough presence of mind to develop the allegorical aspects of their premise more boldly (say, time-travelling as a metaphor for someone who cannot deal with his problems and when weighed down by life's fardels chooses to live in the past or simply daydream). But if the authors of this script meant anything like that, the actual execution of the film really dropped the ball with it, as the director instead chose to focus on the quotidian difficulties of time-jumping (e.g., having no clothes) instead of any metaphorical meanings.
 WTH did I just watch? September 2, 2010
D. Mikels (Skunk Holler)
Time travel should be intriguing--not goofy. A genetic disorder that causes involuntary time travel, whereby the traveler arrives in the past, or future, in his birthday suit, and he has no control over how long he stays? Plus said traveler must resort to breaking and entering to find clothes for his person, ticking off countless property owners and law enforcement personnel.
Like I said, goofy. Pass the Pepcid.
Thus we have the silly mess that is THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE. A confused-looking Eric Bana is the time traveler, a mild-mannered Chicago librarian who turns into a WWF brawler when he has to go find something to wear. His "disorder" supposedly is beyond his control--he doesn't know when he'll disappear to travel in time, nor how long he'll be gone--yet at one point he tells his future wife, six at the time, the exact day he'll be back so that she may leave some of her father's clothes in the bushes for him.
This thing is more uneven than my latest P&L statement.
At the center of this silliness is a love story--the marriage of the time traveler and his starry-eyed wife (Rachel McAdams). It goes without saying his popping in and out of her life produces considerable strain on the relationship. A missed Christmas here, a zany wedding there, an image of him fatally wounded in the hallway for melodramatic effect, and that pretty much sums it up. McAdams's character exhibits the patience of Job, which sets a good example for anyone wanting to watch the spectacle that is THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE. Be prepared to be dazed, confused. . .and bored.
--D. Mikels
 Not really much sci fi, but a solid character study romance August 30, 2010
Brent Butler (North Carolina)
"The Time Traveler's Wife" takes a simple approach to a time travel gimmick, and uses it to explore a very unique character study. Essentially, a boy learns that he travels in time when an older version of himself shows up at a traumatic moment to explain to him what is going on. Through his life, he is unable to control the mechanism of his time trips, which happen at random and often inconvenient moments.
In the process, as a young man our time traveling hero meets a little girl on a solo picnic. Over the years of her childhood and teenage years he appears several times, and she of course develops a crush on him. When they finally encounter each other as young adults of about the same age, they fall in love and marry. The movie's mechanism has two characters encountering each other almost randomly at various ages of the two people. This is a unique concept and was very interesting.
Complexities arise when it turns out that his time traveling curse is of genetic origin, and attempts at having a child result in unexplained miscarriages, and concomitant pressure on their relationship.
I found this to be a very sweet story. It promotes the interest of the viewer without the overly dramatic devices that most movies have to resort to. Tension is provided almost solely by the consequences of unexpected time travel incidents, rather than through character conflict. Although there is some character conflict, it is really minimal. There is a very simple story, a very simple romantic relationship, yet a very compelling movie.
I wish Einstein had watched this with me August 29, 2010
Rev. E. A. Hernandez
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE, something of an irritating borefest, is an obligation we had to address sooner or later--fulfilling the promise to review all time travel movies of interest. A bad movie can still be "of interest".
Firstly, it can be said that this film treats time travel in a rather blasé fashion: it's a genetic disease here, somehow related to epilepsy. Of course the poor bastard time traveler Henry (Eric Bana, miraculously though not in-every-scene freshly shaved) won't learn this til late in life. That is just one of the bits of tomfoolery this film will throw at you. You are expected to swallow all this, thank you very little, without protest.
Well, it can't be all bad, and it isn't. Henry's eternal love Clare (young Jennifer Garner lookalike Rachel McAdams) seems to be the main focal point of his travels into the past, which we see only in hashed-up bits though it occurs constantly. There is one single fascinating line in this film: that time travel disease is event-related, thus gravity-related. I'd never heard that proposed in any story before. Though Henry travels to the future, we see only a scene or two of that. I will not spoil what he sees. However, it amounts to relatively little.
What I have told my students, my wife and my ever-more-quantum-curious little brother about time travel is that one should forget about it, lest one go completely round the twig. If you spend a second applying physics in either the Einsteinian or Heisenbergian modes, you'll miss this snorefest. And my goodness, who'd want to miss something like a solid 25 minutes total screen time of Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams making love?!
In case you want some idea of quality: this film was produced by Brad Pitt and directed by a nobody German director, Robert Schwentke. The cinematography such as it is seems rather clever, and based on the work here, I'd expect big things in the future from director Schwentke.
All in all, I'd say don't really expect anything from this almost-B-quality film. Use the "generous" B-movie mentality if you see it. Otherwise, buy THE TOMORROW MAN (see my review--you'll like that film a lot more).
Showing reviews 1-5 of 125
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