Old-Hat Reviews: The Time Traveler's Wife

The movie, not the book.

I enjoyed the book a few years ago and looked forward to reading it again, but then my mother-in-law stole it* and I haven't yet managed to get my hands on a replacement copy. So I felt that by now I was far enough removed from the written word to watch the film without getting all annoyed about it. (Because some people did, you know.)

[*In her defence, I have to say that she didn't really steal it. She liberated it from the bonds of my bookshelf and sent it on its way in the world to be enjoyed by others. My mother-in-law views books as fluid objects, transcending ownership. I view books as mine, living on my bookshelves, to be lent out with caution and recovered zealously. But since I had appropriated her copy of Never Let Me Go in similar circumstances the same year, and she almost always leaves us whatever she's finished reading at the end of a visit, I'm in no position to take the high ground here.]

I'm blessed (from the perspective of one who enjoys re-reading books and gets great value out of a big reveal - again) with a terrible memory for details, once any length of time has passed. (I was a great exam candidate so long as I could review everything the night before, but ask me to integrate a whatsit or define a function these days and you'll be met with a blank look and a referral to my husband.) What I remembered from the book, apart from the basic plot of the bloke cursed with sudden bouts of uncontrollable, naked, time travelling, was that for some reason I had got it into my head that he was Harrison Ford. Ford is, of course, too old for the part, but such logic had no place in my head. Transferring my affections to Eric Bana was a bit of a leap for me, but I managed to accept his Henry fairly well - it probably helped divorce the on-screen story further from the written version, which was no bad thing for me.

Claire-in-my-head was the girl from Six Feet Under (Lauren Ambrose) - perhaps influenced by the fact that her character in that was also called Claire, and that she's a redhead. Rachel McAdams was a bit too dark of hair, but she's prettily generic-looking and was okay in the part, I thought.

I don't know what sort of experience this film would have been for someone who hadn't read the book: I suspect they might be left in the dust as the complex logic of this particular iteration of time travel was, sort of, brought to life. Of course, there's always an element of suspension of disbelief needed, and much as I love this sort of thing, I usually do end up at some point gesticulating wildly at the screen and going, "But, but, but..." like a broken record as my disbelief crashes to the ground and my logic circuits kick in uninvited. And this one really messes with the mind when it comes to predestination versus free will, because unlike some other time-travel scenarios, in this case there is only one future. And if you know it and you can't change it, what's the frigging point of anything, really? Gah.

The narrative moved very quickly, but such is always the way with films of books you've lived with and allowed to get under your skin. There's no way you can ever love a film like a book. There was hardly any time for the sense of foreboding and imminent disaster that I remember, the long-drawn-out fears for Henry's feet and legs and ability to get out of trouble fast, the repeated visits to the scene of his death, with a little more information being gleaned each time.

It was a decent enough way to pass the time, and mostly just made me resolve to get my hands on the book again. Maybe this just wasn't the right medium for this story; it's much, much better in words. Even Harrison Ford couldn't have made it work.