reviewed by Charity Bishop
     

Blending romance and tragedy, The Time Traveler's Wife is an unusual film based on a best-selling novel that follows the adventures of a man who can inadvertently pop in and out of time...

The car accident would have killed Henry DeTamble at six years old if he had not simply "faded" away in the backseat seconds before the collision and reappeared naked, trembling, and cold on the side of the road moments later. No one knows why it happens, but it does -- Henry can disappear and reappear, visiting different moments on his own timeline that do not make any sense to him. Once an adult, Henry (Eric Bana) meets the beautiful Clare (Rachel McAdams) at his job as a researcher at the library. Clare knows him but he does not know Clare -- until she takes him to dinner and explains that a "later" version of him has been visiting her on the family estate since she was a child. It does not take long for him to learn to trust her and romance follows -- something that is easy since she has been "in love" with him since she was eighteen. But having a husband that disappears and reappears all the time, sometimes leaving for two weeks at a go, is difficult. He nearly misses their wedding. He really does miss Christmas and New Years. He cannot control it.

Worse, she starts having miscarriages, leading them both to wonder if their baby is a time traveler too... and simply traveling out of the womb. It makes for an intruding if at times very sad story. I had heard about the ending before I went in so it didn't come as a surprise to me, but once you get a decent way into the plot you will start figuring out where it is heading. I don't mind admitting that I spent a good portion of the last hour hour in tears. That's the kind of drama it is, so if you don't enjoy stories with only "semi-happy" conclusions you might not like this one. While the morals are askew, it does have some positive things -- like Henry caring deeply about the people around him. He cannot "change" time, but he does go out of his way to comfort his friends and family as he bleeds in and out of different times in his life. One of the more touching aspects about it is his ability to visit even momentarily the future and come to know individuals he would not have otherwise. There is a heavy emphasis placed on the value of children and how devastating it is to have a miscarriage. Henry does not always make the right decision but in spite of his faults, he is a charismatic and likable hero. Bana struggles a little bit in the beginning but by the end has won us over. McAdams glows from the start and handles some difficult material with surprising ease, proving she's not just a one-shot actress. I also loved the performance by Hailey McCann as their nine year old daughter -- she is simply delightful.

There is a reasonable amount of content, most of it pertaining to sensuality and nudity -- Henry cannot travel through time with his clothes so wherever he winds up, he goes there naked. We see numerous instances of partial (and occasional backside) nudity as he scrambles to find clothes. (He generally steals them -- breaking into store fronts and locked cars, and sometimes snatching them off unattended park benches.) I was more disappointed that Henry and Clare fell into bed so fast -- she has know him for a long time but he has known her all of five minutes! The scene has them passionately kissing and disrobing; we see most of her bare backside the next morning when she gets up. After an argument with Henry, Clare initiates an encounter with a younger version of himself from the past. There is a mild amount of violence -- a man is shot and fatally injured; a woman suffers miscarriages that involve blood on her clothing; a woman slaps a man; two men get into a brutal fight outside a biker bar (one man calls the other one a "homophobe"). There are two harsh abuses of Jesus' name, two uses of GD, and numerous uses of the s-word.

Much is to like about this film -- its unique plot and touching scenes leave the audience with a lot to think about. It's about life and death and bears the underlining message that we should live each moment to the fullest. It's about a long-term relationship that deals with some difficult things without love ever fading or wavering. Henry and Clare sometimes fight (once about something very important) but at the end of the day absolutely are devoted to one another. It's a positive message that even when it's hard, a couple can choose to work through it and forgive one another's shortcomings. There is however a sad conclusion, but the more troubling aspect is its frequent emphasis on sensuality. I think the story could have been told just as well without as much skin -- it's distracting and pulls our focus away from the message onto our opinion of physical beauty. It almost undermines the charm of having an older Henry show up for his wedding to Clare and a younger one simply vanish on their wedding night. It proves more distracting than breaking plates and clothes falling into a heap on the floor. Even so, if you are up for a good cry, The Time Traveler's Wife will transport you into an alternate series of events in which you are never quite sure just which Henry might walk through the door.