The Time Traveler’s Wife

Posted by Blakeborough on Aug 21, 2009 in Blockbuster, Features, Film | View Comments

Not probably something you’d expect to see a review of here but it does have an undoubtedly sci-fi flavour, albeit with a chick lit twist.

The trailers for this film pretty much caused me to refuse to watch this film as it makes it look like sappy drivel. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this is not the case at all. The Time Traveler’s Wife, adapted from a very popular novel which I am yet to read tells the story of Henry who is involved in a car accident when he is six that kills his mother. Whilst their car is hurtling towards its final impact, Henry reappears further down the road where he is confronted by his future self who tells him that he has just time travelled and he can’t control it.

Fast forward to now(ish) and adult Henry (Eric Bana) is working in a library. Clare (beautiful beautiful Rachel McAdams) comes to visit and tells him that future Henry has told her before to introduce herself at this exact time. Obviously they then fall in love and there are lots of sexy shenanigans (something for the Mills and Boon crowd I felt). Turns out that the time travelling is a genetic disorder and that Henry can neither stop himself travelling nor choose where he will end up. He also can’t take his clothes with him which just revealed that Bana is nowhere near as buff as I thought he’d be. He then pops up all over time but to keep some sort of structure we tend to follow Clare around and watch as different ages of Henry arrive and do the dirty with her.

So anyway, lots of love and stuff happens and Clare and Henry marry. They try to have a child but the baby has the same condition as Henry and “travels out of the womb” so Clare miscarries repeatedly.

Hmm, the more I write about the plot it all feels a bit melodramatic and blah. I can only assume that it is the quality of McAdams’ and Bana’s acting and they do have a very real on-screen chemistry that carries some of the really painful lines. Eventually Henry dies as a result of being shot but this climax is a slow builder as he travels nearer and even after the time of his death so that by the time he does actually die I was starting to wonder when it was going to happen.

Overall, I liked this. It was a fun trip to the cinema to see a film I ordinarily would not choose. I enjoyed the psuedo-sci-fi leanings of the story although they didnt always make sense and I enjoyed looking at Rachel McAdams and her lovely bottom. I would say this is a good second date film. Not unmissable but a nice change of pace for me.