No time to fit the whole lot in (The Time Traveler's Wife (DVD))

Member Name: bruffyboy

Product:	The Time Traveler's Wife (DVD)
Date:	20/09/09 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good love story

Disadvantages: misses out a lot of the book

I have to say that I was skeptical about this film. I have read the book, and place it as one of the top five works of fiction I have ever read; it really is phenomenal. A few years back I was excited to see Brad Pitt and Jeniffer Aniston had bought the film rights, but their subsequent split put the film on ice. Anyway, Brad ended up buying the lot and the result is this movie.

The tale revolves around Henry, a time traveling librarian, who goes back and forth in time to various points of the life of his future wife Claire. He meets her as a young girl, a teen, and so on.

The tale is first and foremost a love story, but in the book there's a lot more to it than that. In the film, they've gone for simplicity, and made it a simple love story. The sub-plots of the novel are gone, and the difficult to get your head around bits made as plain and simple as possible with some naïve and weak dialogue that summarises everything handily in a few lines.

However, this does work as a love story, and I found myself liking it (although I had to work to do so).

The pace is pretty slow in the first half. This may be because they were trying to set the scene (which I already knew), but it dragged a little for the first forty minutes. However, it hotted up after that, as it juxtaposed the love for your wife with the love for your kids (two things I could relate to), and I have to say I liked that bit.

The acting is interesting. The incredibly talented Eric Bana took the role of Henry, but I don't think he did much with it. Think of 'Chopper', and even the small role in 'Funny People', and you'd think Bana could excel here, but his showing is nothing fantastic. Rachel McAdams, as Claire, does a better job. Her performance isn't stereotypical love story, and I liked it a lot. The child actors are a bit weak (are there NO kids out there who can act convincingly?)

The special effects are minimal but excellent, with the 'fading away in front of your eyes' bit being brilliant fun.

If you liked it, the film is being made into a TV show!

All in all, a nice love story, but if you've read the book you won't fail to notice it's a watered down version of the original.

Summary: do it