The Time Traveler’s Wife Redeemed!
Scientists have recently discovered that mastodons once excreted what has become our canon of elite cinema. This may have prompted Mep Reporter Russ Gooberman to declare the recently-released film “The Time Traveler’s Wife” a “steaming pile of mastodon dung“.
(Here there be spoilers.)
I finally got around to seeing this film and the top paragraph is the only explicable theory I can comprehend for Russ’ opinion of “The Time Traveler’s Wife”. I know this man to be of sound mind and body, so there’s simply no other way. Allow me to deconstruct…
Since this will essentially take the form of a debate round, I will give you three affirmative reasons why “The Time Traveler’s Wife” (henceforward “TTTW”) is an excellent piece of moviemaking, worthy of your hard-randomly-rewarded-by-our-busted-system ten dollars. Then I will demonstrate the inadequacy of Russ’ points.
Argument 1: TTTW is Profoundly Clever and Original
In the history of science fiction, a genre that purports to embrace creativity and exploration of vast, unique plotlines, no great work (perhaps no work at all) has ever theorized time traveling as something which is not a choice. Let alone something which is not the result of the careful laboring of elite (or mad) scientists and the resultant construction of machinery and theories. The exploration of time traveling as a genetic predisposition, as something which is more a pain than a blessing, as something described by the protagonist at one point as “chrono-impairment”, these things alone are worth the price of a sci-fi fan’s admission. And indeed, TTTW is an exploratory movie, examining many different possibilities and scenarios with a keen eye for awkward and interesting hypotheticals.
Argument 2: TTTW Provides Mind-Blowing Elegance and Consistency
Throughout the history of time-travel books and movies, there have been inconsistencies. Things that must be overlooked. Alternate universes and dei ex machinis up the wazoo. You will not find these in TTTW. The plotline of TTTW blends fate and free will so perfectly that you have to spend hours of aftermath just checking everything out, tugging at any strand of a loose end possibility, just to make sure. And it works. It all fits. One comes to the distressing conclusion that it’s possible neither of the main characters in the book have any free will, a plot device one might think Russ would have enjoyed. Not only does this make it an extremely well-crafted accomplishment of plot-development, it prompts a stirring and unsettling contemplation for the viewer. How much free will have they exercised? Have seemingly random circumstances necessitated their current place all along?
Argument 3: TTTW is Well-Paced Drama
Aside from its beauty as a work of science fiction, TTTW is great storytelling as well, building from a somewhat confusing outset to a gradual crescendo of unease and ultimate cloudburst of dramatic impact. It is impossible (unless, I guess, one has already inexplicably given up on the movie) to not be emotionally impacted by the last third of the film. This is something I was perhaps most concerned the movie would not be able to effectively translate from the book, but I needn’t have worried. I can’t remember the last time I cried so much in a theater.
Now, to Russ’ “misconceptions” about the movie…
Russ:
Misconception 1: The Time Traveler’s Wife is a Movie.
Fact: The Time Traveler’s Wife is a highlight reel, poorly pasted together.
There is no consistency, no narrative, no character development, and virtually no plot. The husband and wife only interact with each other in brief exchanges that resemble something like this:
McAdams: “Where have you been?”
Bana: “I’ve been time traveling.”
McAdams: “Well, shit.”
As you can imagine, it’s awfully hard to develop any characters or plot when the protagonists are only allowed to speak two sentences before one of them gets dumped in the middle of a bridge for no reason.
Having read the book, I do have to caveat my response here a little. The book does a better job than the movie of establishing exactly what’s going on, because it has more time to. For this reason, had I been making the movie, I would have aimed for 2.5 hours instead of the 1.5 hours and change they went for. But most people don’t like long movies as much as I do, so I can see why they went for the faster pace.
Nevertheless, Russ’ accusations are ludicrous here. I have never seen such consistency in a time travel film, as I’ve discussed – I challenge Russ to name one loose end that doesn’t wash. There is a very thorough, progressive narrative, though it is certainly even more fractured than one’s standard fractured narrative. This is admittedly a device that requires effort on the part of the viewer and gives the viewer credit for being able to figure things out, rather than spoonfeeding everything.
Similarly, some of the character development must be extrapolated through the use of empathy on the part of the viewer, because the characters are driven through a series of emotional torments that one must try to relate to rather than having their emotions explained in some sort of pantomime. Movies are not a debate round where every argument must be completely explicit – sometimes the viewer must get wrapped up in a character’s mindspace and imagine how they would feel in this situation. This is, in fact, one of the key points of TTTW.
If anything, there is too much plot crammed together in a short span. “Being John Malkovich” is a movie with no plot, where people came up with a funny premise and then forgot to make a movie. TTTW, by contrast, is a movie with a steadily increasing drama where one learns about the characters, they develop, they go through all the key stages of life that all humans do, and it makes sense. Unlike so many movies with wasted potential (including “District 9”, b-t-dubs), TTTW not just a gimmicky premise, but it really pursues the premise to its logical conclusions.
Indeed, if there were any more dialogue between the main characters, Russ would probably have accused it of being a snoozer, right alongside “chick flick” (a critique levied, presumably, because there was emotion in this sci-fi film instead of cyborgs and automatic weapons).
Russ:
Misconception #2: The Time Traveler’s Wife is about time travel.
Fact: This movie has nothing to do with time travel.
It’s as if the author saw the movie Terminator once, and decided it would be super sexy to employ the Terminator rule that you have to time travel naked. Otherwise there are no rules. According to this movie, you can never alter the course of history as a time traveler (except when you do), and you definitely can never use your time travel powers to go anywhere interesting or historically significant. There are no parallel universes, time paradoxes, or Deloreans to be found. What Eric Bana does in this movie has nothing to do with space, time, or theoretical physics. It just confuses things to call this time travel. I prefer calling it, “Jamiroquai-ing.”
The real fact here, sadly, is that science fiction has boxed itself in so much as a genre that people have trouble recognizing originality or advancement of the genre. We have these neat little codes that we expect in time travel movies, where we want the requisite numbers of paradoxes, inventions, and significant historical events.
These are actually a bit of a crutch. Just the other day, I was talking to Russ about how zombie movies became a genre and now people will make the 23rd slight tweak on zombie theory without challenging key assumptions of the genre, let alone inventing a new one.
TTTW fearlessly rejects the genre stereotypes, while still having very interesting and profound things to say about time travel. It makes sense that if a person could time travel naturally, only their body would go. It makes sense that if one could do so naturally, it would be very hard (if not impossible) to control where or when one travels. It would be a jarring, crazy, disorienting experience that was altogether a pain in the ass, not some world-beating opportunity to make history totally different. It would be, functionally, a disability, which is how it’s presented in TTTW.
And because of the brilliance of the plot, Henry never does make a choice to change something about his future, try as he might in some cases. By the time he’s traveling back and meeting his wife, they’ve already hooked up in normal chronological time. Everything that happens has already been determined to happen and Henry never makes a choice to change anything when he’s traveled back or forward in time. I cannot stress enough how brilliantly consistent this is as an examination of time travel conceptually. There are no paradoxes because they are deftly avoided by the skilled mechanics of the plot.
Russ:
Misconception #3: The Time Traveler’s Wife is romantic.
Fact: The Time Traveler’s Wife is an allegory about an abusive relationship.
The secret about this movie is that its entire purpose is to give women a justification for staying with a shoddy husband. Think about it. Here is a husband who skips out on his own wedding (letting some older dude take his place at the ceremony), leaves town for weeks at a time, and holds no job. Did I mention that he originally seduces his wife when she’s nine years old and he’s forty?
His excuse for this? He’s a “time traveler” (Jamiroquai-er). Whenever he gets stressed out (or drinks too heavily) he “time travels” to a place of no accountability, where he’s compelled to pick locks, break into stores and/or apartments, crossdress, steal things, and spend the night evading the cops.
The time-traveling aspect is simply a mental trick invented by a rationalizing wife who doesn’t want to admit to herself that she married an alcoholic, distant man. This woman is in some serious denial. As are the many women who think they are married to a gallant, marauding, hero, who just happens to never be around. Keep drinking that Kool-Aid, ladies.
I will say that the parallel between what Clare experiences in this movie and a standard-issue absent husband is one of the strengths of the movie, not weaknesses. Because, of course, since she sees him disappear and there’s irrefutable proof throughout her life of the veracity of his time-travel claim, it’s not an abusive relationship. But it has much in common with one.
And this is, again, a strength of the film. Circumstances have more or less abridged the free will of both protagonists, putting them in a relationship they feel predestined to pursue. This predestination makes them each feel, at times, like the most blessed and the most cursed person in the world. This is probably not unlike most people feel in their ultimate relationship, making it a meaningful work of art for people in considering their own lives. But it’s especially clever here, because you have to look at Clare and say “Gee, even though he can’t help it, this looks a lot like a typical absent husband.”
This, however, does not contravene the romance of the story, because it’s unambiguous that the time travel is real. As a result, we are forced to envy the relationship displayed as somehow more fated and more truly destined, more perfect, in some ways, than our own. For Clare, her fairy tale is real, her imaginary magical friend really did come out of the woods and it all worked out. But at a price that reminds us we might not so easily trade places with Henry or Clare, which provokes yet more thought about our own decisions and lives. Since, ultimately, we do have more choice in our matters than they do, and this is a blessing.
Russ:
The only thing this movie succeeded in, was making me desperately want to time travel into a world where I’d left the theater 15 minutes in and snuck into District 9, instead.
“District 9”, which I saw earlier, is a lot like “Being John Malkovich”. The premise is great, there’s originality bouncing around the first 30 minutes like a Powerball machine with a broken “off” switch. But then it devolves into insane sci-fi stereotypes that prove exactly why TTTW is great, original science fiction and D9 is just another hackneyed Western with aliens. By the end of the movie, one wonders how much more they could get beaten over the head with the racial metaphors (despite the film itself being strangely racist at times) and one wonders why the creators chose to combine “The Fly” with “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral”.
Yes, there are aliens! And space-age weaponry! And a mothership! And technology! But strip away the special effects and you have a patchy amalgam of meaningless slam-bam action and wooden props for characters. If you like your sci-fi in any way subtle or exploring something other than how to make a sequel with even more action, TTTW is a way better bet.
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