TTTW Review: Hated It
Loved the Book, Hated the Film. (Warning: Contains spoilers!)
Words: Celyn Grosvenor
The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)
Rating: 12A Release Date: August 14, 2009
My Score: 1/5
See also: TTTW Review Liked It
I have just come back from watching The Time Traveler's Wife in the cinema. I think I speak for everyone in that theatre when I say I was severely disappointed.
To anyone who hasn't read the book, the film was complete nonsense. This doesn't encourage people to read the book, as the author had probably hoped. I think to say that the film didn't do the book justice is a vast understatement.
Sure, like all film adaptations, it was incredibly condensed to fit a given time. But the pace it was going at just makes the viewer unable to follow anything happening. They decided to put in the beginning of a relevant part of the story, only to forget about it, making the scene irrelevant to the rest of the film. For instance, there is a scene when Clare finds a lipstick in Henry's bathroom cabinet. He deletes all mystery of another woman by saying "It's been over for a while." In actual fact, that lipstick belongs to an ex lover of Henry, one of whom he greatly adored and is in rivalry against Clare. Henry was a womaniser before he met Clare in his present time. Ingrid, the ex lover, was a victim to this. So much so she kills herself in front of Henry, blaming him. Ingrid is an important character whom they completely cut out.
Another example is Henry's mother. She was a singer who, in a tragic car accident, was decapitated while sitting next to Henry. His father then gave in to drinking and was not stable, thus, is unable to play the violin that he so dearly loved. This is why it comes as a surprise to Henry when Alba tells him that Grandpa is teaching her the violin. Oh, and Clare's mother also dies.
It also completely cuts out another character: an old woman who lives in the same apartment block as Henry's father. She knows about Henry's condition and often sees him as a child again, playing in the garden. I actually felt sorry for this character for not gaining a place in the film.
Oh, and also: Gomez is in love with Clare. There was a slight hint to this when he says to Henry about how much he cares for her. They slept together in the past and once again after Henry dies. The movie failed to mention that, along with several other events that happen as Clare is growing up: Henry seeing to a boy that attacked Clare; meeting her friends at a party; Clare doing a Ouija Board as a child; and so much more.
The thing that annoyed me, and upset me, the most was the ending. The film ends with Clare and Alba seeing Henry time travelling into the future, which I know was also quite hard to understand from the film in general. In the book, however, Henry always disappears before Clare manages to reach him. But he tells her, before he dies, that he has travelled into the future and has seen Clare as an old woman, staring out of the window waiting for him. It ends with Clare aged 82, longing for him and closes with the words: "But I have no choice. He is coming, and I am here."
I had tears streaming down my face all the way through the book. The way Audrey Niffenegger cleverly managed to not only write a completey moving novel, but also to make a story about time travel actually understandable, is beyond me.
But if I was the author, I would sue whoever made my book into that film.
Other films reviewed this month:
The Time Traveler's Wife: Why I liked the film
Broken Embraces
Orphan
Religulous
