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While diehard fans of Audrey Niffenegger's best-selling novel might not be thrilled with the departures the film took from its source material, The Time Traveler's Wife is still a romantic, moving, and dare I say funny take on the most unusual of love affairs.

(The following is a reprint of our theatrical review of The Time Traveler's Wife. It is now available to rent at redbox kiosks.)

Not since The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring premiered in December 2001 have I been so nervous while sitting in a theater, waiting for a film to begin.  That's because there are few books I care about—that I cherish, you might say—as much as J.R.R. Tolkien's LOTR trilogy and Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife.  You all know that I had lower than low expectations for this Robert Schwentke-helmed adaptation once I saw its cheeserific trailer.  So I'll cut to the chase and allow my fellow TTTW fans to breathe a sigh of relief: my worst fears weren't realized.  The film is in no way as spellbinding or as soulful as the novel, but it stands just fine on its own. Perhaps I only feel that way, however, because there’s a large part of me that could simply never hate or be disenchanted with the unconventional romance between Clare Abshire and Henry DeTamble, no matter how it was interpreted for the big screen.

So here's how I'm going to approach this review: I’ll first give you my take on the film—and only the film—with absolutely no comparisons made to its source material.  Then I'll let loose and share my thoughts on the differences between the book and the movie, because there are many… and they are significant.

In the film it’s quickly established that Henry (Eric Bana) is no ordinary guy.  He’s been jumping around in time since the age of five, and unfortunately for him he’s not doing so by way of a phone booth or a DeLorean or a frozen donkey wheel on a mysterious, lost island.  Nope, Henry simply dissolves into thin air and then materializes—whole again—at another point in time.  He can't stop it from happening (nor can he make it happen), but becoming particularly stressed out or excited often seems to kick-start the process.  Did I mention he loses everything on him when this happens?  And I do mean everything.  (Legions of Eric Bana fans just reread that last sentence, considered its possibilities, and immediately headed out to their closest redbox kiosk… bye, guys!) 

Even with all the time-traveling, this is by no means a sci-fi film.  Don’t expect a lot in the way of impressive visuals when Henry starts fading to black, either.  (In fact, I’m willing to make a bet that the FX team's intern was put in charge of these segments, and decided just to use the film software equivalent of Photoshop’s “eraser” tool on the leading man.)  Schwentke clearly didn’t want the time-jumps to be a whiz-bang affair, and despite my snarky comment above, I applaud that decision.  This story isn’t about the spectacle of Henry’s departures— it’s about how he struggles with what he learns in both the past and the future, and it’s about the love of his life, who feels that she “never had a choice” but to wait time and time again for his return.

Which brings us to Clare (Rachel McAdams).  When Henry meets her for the first time, she already knows him.  No, I take that back… she doesn’t just know him, she’s already head over heels for him.  How can this be?  Well, the site of many of Henry’s crash landings is a meadow situated far back on Clare’s family’s estate, and this is where a late-twentysomething Henry meets the six-year-old Clare.  He visits her often over the course of the next twelve years, until she is eighteen.  (Those scenes could've come off as really creepy… but thankfully they weren't.)  The next time she sees him, it's not in the meadow but rather in the Chicago library where he works.  She's twenty or so… but he is younger than he was when his travels started taking him to the meadow.  So he's like, "Who's this crazy chick?" when she's all, "I must have you now!!!" 

Clear?

Don't worry about it if you couldn't follow the above paragraph, because for the most part Schwentke, and screenwriters Jeremy Leven and Bruce Joel Rubin, were able to present Clare and Henry's respective timelines fairly coherently.  Where they stumbled, however, was in conveying why Clare felt the way she did about Henry, and why he felt the way he did about her.  It seems like they expected the audience to immediately "get" that these characters are meant to be together and that's just the way it is because Henry had seen them together in the future.  Bana and McAdams certainly pulled out all the stops in some of their more emotional scenes, but it wasn't enough to make the audience understand why their characters' relationship could withstand such extraordinary turmoil over the years.

My other issue with the film is that Clare's friend Gomez (Ron Livingston) served absolutely no purpose.  He provides a few comic relief moments and that's all fine and good, but at one point Henry is thanking him for "always being there"… yet he was never shown "being there" for anything.  He wasn't who Clare turned to when Henry disappeared, he wasn't trying to help Henry control his condition, he didn't even have to be in the movie.  Same goes for Dr. David Kendrick (Stephen Tobolowsky), who was introduced as someone that would attempt to treat Henry's genetic anomaly… but then we never heard or saw anything more about that.

So the narrative definitely has some shaky moments, and there are a few small plot holes, but the strength and uniqueness of the overriding story saves the day.  By the end of the film I felt satisfied with how these characters were brought to life, even though they were nothing like what I'd pictured them to be in my head. 

Take that as a segue into my "why'd they change that?!?" section.  Those of you who have not picked up the novel, I urge you stop reading this post so that you don't ruin it for yourselves.  You should really check it out—it's so different from the film, it will almost be like reading an entirely different story (no lie).  And those of you who have read the novel but have not seen the movie, you best stop reading now as well.  Come back after you've seen the movie and we'll compare notes, mmmkay?

Here's your last chance to stop reading before I get into some spoilers…

Still here?  OK, here we go.

First off, I now believe even more strongly in the principle of waiting a while between reading a book and seeing its cinematic adaptation (as discussed in my interview with 5 Minutes for Books), because it's been five years since I finished The Time Traveler's Wife and so I really had to think about what was changed or left out of the movie (besides the lack of red hair on adult Clare, obviously).  I did remember the book's cover, however, and was happy that they had a few nods to it in the film.

As far as changes go, they cut out a ton, so I'm not going to list out everything. Instead, here are a few of the bigger tweaks:
– I already covered my beef with Gomez at a high level earlier in this post, but what I didn't say is that the whole undercurrent of his jealousy toward Henry was completely absent.  As was Ingrid.  That's right, no Ingrid, anywhere.  Since it was a clean cut (although she was alluded to in a subtle way at the very beginning of the film), it didn't bother me too much… I understand that her presence would've just made the film that much more complex.  But it was a tad disappointing overall because I thought she was such an interesting character.
- Henry doesn't completely lose his feet from frostbite near the end of the story but rather ends up in a wheelchair.  That wasn't anything to get worked up about, in my opinion.
- The entire "hip factor" of Clare was scrapped in exchange for a more girly Claire.  It bothered me at the beginning of the film, but as things progressed it was less noticeable and annoying.  I still don't agree with Henry being such a beefcake, though.  He never goes through any sort of physical change in the film, nor do they explicitly show that his condition is getting a lot worse and taking its toll on him. 

But the biggest switcheroo—which is sure to have fans of the novel up in arms—is that they changed the ending.  The ending.  As in, the final scene with Old Lady Clare.  As in, the scene that drives home the entire point of the book.  As in, the only scene Audrey Niffenegger said she wouldn't ever want to be changed.  I'm sure she's still weeping somewhere.  Even my husband, who's wasn't really that big a fan of the novel, said, "I can't believe they left out that last scene."

The saddest thing is that they actually filmed it.  But then they cut it out because it confused a test audience. 

OK, people!  I NEED to hear your thoughts on this one.  Spoilers are allowed in the comments, so have at it!

Need to watch it first? Reserve a copy at redbox!