The Time Traveler’s Wife

I just watched a great film, The Time Traveler’s Wife. I should mention that I have a memory problem, one that causes me to completely ‘lose’ things, almost without the slightest trace. It has downsides of course, more than I could explain (I’ve forgotten half of them!), but there’s an upside to it as well – I sometimes almost totally forget a film that I’ve seen, which means I can enjoy it all over again, as though for the very first time.

I’d forgotten it (thankfully)

I know you’re thinking “I’m like that, I forget that I’ve seen a film”, but you see the first ten minutes, or as far as the first really characteristic moment, and then it all starts coming back to you, right? That happens to me sometimes too, but there are also times (like with The Time Traveler’s Wife) where I can watch the whole thing and remember virtually nothing. I just recognise the slightest things here and there, things that remain, like the vaguest impressions of a thing, almost like a taste or a smell that lingers in the mind, but just enough to tease you, not enough to remind you of anything specific.

Okay, enough about that. I can’t explain it any better and it probably sounds like I’m making it up anyway, so I’ll leave it at that. I’m just trying to explain how it is I can watch a film and it’s literally almost brand new to me, although I realise at some point that I must have seen it before. Whatever, back to the film.

It’s the kind of film I shouldn’t have liked, in a way. I don’t normally watch a romantic movie, or if I find myself watching one I usually find it cloying and over sentimental. This is definitely a romantic movie, but one so well done that, in my opinion, it couldn’t be improved upon. If you haven’t seen the film, and you want to watch it sometime, probably better if you don’t read any further. I’ll be relating parts of it that would be regarded as ‘spoilers’, and I don’t want to mess it up for you. It’s too good a film to have it ruined before you see it.

Another time travel film?

Firstly, it’s a time travel story (obviously, from the title), and I just love the concept of time travel. Have done since I first read the H G Wells’ masterly work, The Time Machine about fifty years ago, a book so good you wonder how someone could possibly have written it. It seems to push the boundaries of what’s possible in writing, taking the reader on a fantastic journey to times and places never even imagined before. In writing terms, an amazing achievement. So there I was, set up for an entertaining film, with a time traveller and no doubt all the attendant time travel paraphernalia, the gadgets, the science, the paradoxes, the amazing visual effects.

In some ways, it’s a disappointment as a time travel film because most of the aforementioned time travel aspects are missing or glossed over. But this is done in such a way that the viewer doesn’t feel cheated of anything. There is no time machine. There is no breakthrough discovery. No devices or gadgets. No dazzling, sparkling visual effects (except one – when the main character travels he ‘fades’, parts of him literally disappearing, till he’s just gone, leaving nothing but a heap of clothes and a pair of shoes on the floor). He reappears somewhere else (and somewhen else) naked and lost, having to find clothes and some way to fit in.

At some point he appears to a young girl, about six years of age, and thankfully in a situation where he can hide in the bushes till he can cover himself up. He is drawn to visit her at various times (he can’t control his travelling), and becomes her ‘best friend’. She secretly wants to marry him when she grows up and is upset when he tells her, on one of his visits, that he’s married. She doesn’t realise it’s to her, and he can’t really tell her that without messing too much with the normal run of things.

Why was it so good?

Okay, I’m not going to go any further into the story (obviously I could go on and on, it’s so well constructed and there’s so much I could say), but I just want to explore what makes this film so good. In a word, everything. It’s a directorial masterpiece (Robert Schwentke directed it), and the author of the book, Audrey Niffenegger, must have been so impressed with what had been done with her novel.

The acting was excellent, from the traveller (Eric Bana), his ‘best friend’/wife (the stunning Rachel McAdams), his daughter, his doctor (trying to understand his condition and help him cope with it), and all those that he comes into contact with. I literally couldn’t spot a weak point in the whole thing. The story itself focuses on his relationship with his friend and future wife, but is done so well that the viewer is totally drawn into their unique relationship, caring so much for them both that it’s almost heartbreaking. And remember, I don’t watch romantic movies and have no interest in them. And the overall atmosphere of the film … exactly right.

I look forward eagerly to getting hold of the book. I don’t read nearly as much as I used to, but I’ll make an exception for this. And I look forward to seeing the film again. Hopefully I’ll have forgotten most of it in a short while, so it’ll be totally fresh to me once again. Can’t wait!