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List Price: $28.98 | | Label: New Line
Salesrank: 649
Released: February 9, 2010 |
| Our Price: $20.49 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A genuinely old-fashioned Hollywood romance with a science fiction angle, The Time Traveler's Wife stars Eric Bana as Henry DeTamble, a Chicago librarian with a genetic disorder causing him to travel through time involuntarily. The screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin (My Life), based on a novel by Audrey Niffenegger, incorporates some of those crazy paradoxes that are a part of time-travel fiction, but without beating one over the head. Take Henry's introduction to his future wife, Clare (Rachel McAdams), who tells him they've already met even though they haven't actually met. Brain teasers, however, are not what The Time Traveler's Wife is about. In a quite haunting way, the story really concerns what it means to know and love someone at every phase of his or her life. The fact that Henry's life, from Clare's perspective, is hardly linear--he can disappear and turn back up again at different ages--means that she must cherish what is essential about him. Which doesn't mean the couple is immune to periods of unhappiness, including a painful sequence about trying to bear a child--perhaps a child that might also carry the time-traveling gene.
While there is nothing particularly exciting stylistically about The Time Traveler's Wife, in many ways it has the simple charms and clear emotions of a 1940s weepie assigned by a studio to one of its journeyman, contract directors. (The film was directed by Flightplan's Robert Schwentke.) A couple of supporting players, Arliss Howard (as Henry's father) and Ron Livingston (as Henry's friend), provide even more reason to recommend this movie as a satisfying experience. --Tom Keogh
The Time Traveler's Wife Reviews:
NOT WHAT I EXPECTED 
2009-12-29 - THE MOVIE SEEMED VERY THROWN TOGETHER. IF YOUR LOOKING FOR ANOTHER STORY LIKE THE NOTEBOOK, ITS NOT THIS ONE.
The book was good, the movie is silly
2009-12-20 - I enjoyed very much the book on which this movie is based. Reading it, I was able to suspend my disbelief about the plot and just appreciate the touching love affair at the center of the novel.
Unfortunately, the silliness at the heart of the novel was accentuated in the movie and I was unable to suspend my disbelief. Many movies fail to live up to their literary origins but this went a step further -- it made me like the book less than I had before seeing the film.
Things that I glossed over in the book -- the way the protagonist loses all his clothes whenever he time travels -- now seemed ludicrous. The creepy nature of the relationship between the two lovers who meet when he's a grown man and she's a little girl, was accentuated by seeing them together on the screen.
The film stays pretty true to the book except in its final scene, but the growing, brooding threat that hung over the latter pages of the book is absent here. There's something absurd about the way the actors solemnly go through the motions. One doesn't root for them because the whole situation seems too ridiculous to believe.
Great movie! 
2009-09-20 - Review from my wife: It was so compelling and well done, and both my husband and I enjoyed this movie tremendously. The story line was intersting, the characters were really well developed and you really care about them. The acting was excellent, and we found ourselves really pulled in throughout the entire movie.
Contrary to some of the reviews I read, this movie was easy to follow. I don't understand what the problem was. I had never read the book, yet it was completely clear what was going on. I don't get why anyone would have had a problem. Also, there was nothing strange or wrong about the traveller visiting the younger version of his love interest. It was very innocent. One reviewer's mention that there was no plausible explanation for the lead's time travel abilities doesn't make sense to me. There was a very sufficient and even detailed explanation given in the movie. Keep in mind that we're dealing with a fiction scifi story here, and it was plenty adequate. I found I was able to buy into the concept and really immerse myself, and ultimately I enjoyed the story very much.
This is a really fine movie, and I'd recommend that anyone who enjoys scifi, time travel or romance view this.
A good movie based on a great book 
2009-09-14 - In reviewing the Time Traveler's Wife, you have to address two types of viewers, people who have never read the book, and the passionate, opinionated fans who have read the bestselling novel that the movie is based on. If you have read the book, you definitely will be dissapointed in the movie. The book is so in depth and contains so many layers and different characters that it is impossible to include it all in one normal length movie. But on its own, the movie is pretty good.
I have read the book and found the movie quite enjoyable. Eric Bana is perfect as Henry DeTamble, the man suffering from chrono-displacement disorder which causes him to time travel on a whim. The beautiful Rachel McAdams is Clair Abshire, the woman destined to love Henry.
There is good chemistry between the pair as the film moves quickly to their marriage and the difficulties they face as they try to live a life when Henry may have knowledge about their future that could be painful. If you haven't read the book, this is a really good movie. I don't think the time travel elements are too confusing, and the movie is filled with great acting and emotional scenes (Alba, Henry and his mom.)
One thing the movie misses by skipping over so many parts is the true characterization of Henry and Claire. The movie never really gives us a picture of the two other than their lives revolving around Henry's condition. We don't learn about their careers, or how Henry developed a great relationship with Claire as a child and a teenager.
As with all novel adaptations, the film version leaves a lot out. But I enjoyed seeing this story told as a movie. While it has flaws, fans of the book and people looking for a good romance should enjoy it.
Heartfelt, Touching Adaptation of The Best-Selling Novel
2009-09-07 - "The Time Traveler's Wife," based on the best-seller novel by Audrey Niffenegger, is a beautifully realized, poignant romance that makes the viewer thing a lot about love, time, space, devotion, and many other lofty topics.
Eric Bana plays, Henry, a librarian who has a genetic disorder that causes him to randomly travel in time without any notice. He arrives and returns from his travels naked, and has no control over when he leaves and returns. His travels find him at various ages, reliving events like the death of his opera-singer mother in a car accident, or experiencing events for the first time, like getting to know a young girl name Clair. When he is in his late twenties, Clair, who is exactly twenty(played by Rachel McAdams),finds him. At this point, he doesn't know her, but she has known him since she was a little girl.
The rest of film details a relationship fraught with the unknown. Henry leaves and returns without any warning, takes a few close friend into his confidence regarding his secret, struggles to maintain a romance, then a marriage with Clair, and struggles to start a family and remain hopeful, knowing that the future is uncertain and likely to remain unstable.
Bana and McAdams are wonderful in the roles of Henry and Clair. This movie wouldn't work at all unless the characters were perfectly played, had chemistry, and were able to make you focus on the struggle of their relationship rather than the fantasy element of their problem. But the skill of the story is that time traveler ends up being such a perfect metaphor for the uncertainty and difficulties of romantic relationships.
This movie is wonderfully moving in ways that have to be experienced rather than described.
