The Time Traveler's Wife

Let me get this straight. A beautiful, smart woman like Rachel McAdams is willing to put up with a dude who disappears on a whim and leaves her alone for days and weeks on end? Doesn’t she think she can do better? Is it that hard out there to find a guy? It sounds like she needs an intervention by Oprah.

Eric Bana stars as Henry – a man cursed with a genetic defect that causes him suddenly to travel through time without any control over when he is taking off, where he is going or when he is coming back. Worst of all, he shows up naked (luckily, he looks like Eric Bana and not like me, so the nudity thing is more of an inconvenience for him, and a thrill for the women who might catch a glimpse). During these trips through time, he meets up with Claire (Rachel McAdams), who falls in love with him (probably because he looks like Eric Bana, and maybe because he shows up naked).

When the two decide to get married, can they ever have a normal life?

Can she put up with his constant disappearances?

The Time Traveler’s Wife might not have the best script or the most interesting plot, but director Robert Schwentke, along with McAdams and Bana, somehow draw the emotions out of the audience as if they were John Dillinger robbing a bank. You might not want to shed a tear or spend one moment caring about this absurd situation, but their efforts compel you to do so.

Based on the novel by Audrey Niffenegger, the audience does get an original mixture of science fiction and romance, but writer Bruce Joel Rubin doesn’t give us some meat to sink our teeth into. The story has an emptiness to it.

Rubin doesn’t give us dialogue or action that gives us much reason to believe these two are in love. Why does Claire put up with it? What amazing thing does Henry do to make her love him other than showing up naked and looking like Eric Bana? The Time Traveler’s Wife is missing a key ingredient to the magical potion of love, so the audience is supposed to believe Claire and Henry are inseparable and soul mates because the movie says so, not because we are convinced of it.

However, Bana and McAdams do everything possible to rope in the audience and elicit a tear or two even if The Time Traveler’s Wife has a weird premise. McAdams is a fantastic actress who shows us Clarie’s love, longing and loneliness in scenes where dialogue is not needed, while Bana gives the audience a heaping helping of conflict, fear and the torture he feels in his soul as he can’t lead a normal life and gets taken away from the woman he wants to be with forever.

The Time Traveler’s Wife has enough emotion to make your heart sing (and bring a tear to your eye), but don’t let your head start to interfere.

The Time Traveler’s Wife is rated PG-13 for thematic elements, brief disturbing images, nudity and sexuality.