Ever since the death of a little girl in Pune started the Swine flu fatalities and scare in India, and ever since then more than about a 100 have secummbed to this deadly disease. Now we, believing in the maxim of being ‘careful rather than sorry’, started avoiding the crowded city places specially the multiplexes since then. However in the past few weeks maybe even months the number of deaths as well as the general scare has gone down almost in all parts of India. The last 2 movies that we saw before all of this started were “Hangover” and “Angels and Demons”, and since then we have been waiting paitently to restart our weekly pastime.
So last Sunday we were on the lookout for some good flicks that would be acceptable to both me as well as my wife. The only good Hollywood movie running seemed to be “This is it” but unfortunately was at shows so early that we didn’t want to spoil our Sunday lunch by rushing for them. The only choice then left was the relatively unknown one “The Time Travellers Wife”. By the name it seemed like a Sci Fi movie and I was rather pleased when my wife did not object to seeing this one. Even the ratings in the Times of Inidia, which I have come to trust so much in recent times, gave it three stars. So we had an early evening tea and set out to watch this one.
The crowd and the ambience in the multipex were rather encouraging and we even got the seats of our choice! But alas the rest of the experience turned out to be a real damp squib as I shall explain shortly.
The Plot:
The story is about a man who is born with a genetic defect which causes him to time travel. So he just vanishes and evaporates into thin air and then resurfaces in some other place and time totally uncontrolled by him. As if that was not enough, he is unable to take anything with him during these travels, even his clothes. So each time that he lands up in a new place and time he has to search(read steal) for clothes and food. To adapt to such a lifestyle he has over a period of time learnt to pick locks and mastered free hand combat fighting. Plus even though he can go back and forth in time, he cannot influence or change any of the events that have happened; thank lord for little mercies.
Now with the ground rules well explained, I’ll tell you about how the plot progresses. The first time that he time travels is the time when his mother meets with a fatal accident and he is just a little boy of 6 years. Much later when he is 28 he meets with his love interest, a lady who is an artist and is looking for some books in the library where he works. Now this is not the classic case of love at first sight, in fact it’s a little weird. Even though he has never met her before, but she, like she says in her own words, “has been in love with him all her life”. Just concentrate a little harder my friends and I’ll try to explain the situation again to you. Even though he has met her now for the first time but he, when he is older(age above 28), has been going and meeting her since childhood. So once she explains to him all that he himself has told her, love dosent take too long to happen. And like they say, “they were made for each other”.
So the whole movie revolves around her trying to make do with the times when hes around as the rest of the time hes time traveling. As was inevitable a wedding is fixed up and the two get married.
My Take:
I could have continued telling you the rest of the story as well, since Ive just read it on Wikipedia, and remember it quite well! If you are wondering what im talking about I’ll explain once again. Just about where I left the plot was where the break for the interval takes place and both of us just could not bear this nonsensical, lackluster and idiotic story any further and walked out at that time. But since curiosity got the better of me and also since I had to do some research for this review, I thought at least reading the rest of the story on Wikipedia might be a good idea.
The topic has had so many stories told on it that it’s a no brainer, and worse of all this one is so slow and boring that it completely fails to hold the interest or generate any curiosity to enable the moviegoers to even be able to sit through it. It neither falls in the gener of Science Fiction nor in Romance. In fact Weird is what I can call it. What the director or for that matter the author of the book has tried to convey is simply beyond my comprehension. I read somewhere, maybe on Wikipedia itself, that the writer of this book wrote to reflect on his disoriented and disjointed life. However whatever it may have been I must say it’s a very poor attempt.
Eric Bana has played the lead role of the Librarian who Time Travels. Nothing much can be said about his acting. Its totally lackluster. He neither displayes any emotion nor does he look natural at any time. He seems to be walking through the movie in just about the same manner as hes supposed to be walking through his life…involuntary and without any control. It is rumoured that the movie got rather delayed due to Eric having shaved off his head for another role in the film Star Trek that he was shooting for simultaneously. If that was the case really the producers would certainly have benefited from changing the lead man or completing the film with a wig on his head, as his hair couldent have looked any worse in any case.
Rachel Mc Adams has played Clare, the time traveller’s wife. Even though she does look good in some scenes, and rather ordinary in several others, at least her acting is somewhat better. She does display at times the trauma that a woman in love with such a man would go through.