The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)

Any time I have the opportunity is see a new Rachel McAdams film is a happy day indeed. It's no secret that McAdams ranks among my favorite actresses, the emotion she puts into every role is truly amazing and really makes you connect with the character, like the viewer is supposed to. Of course the fact that she's drop dead beautiful and has a smile I could stare at for hours doesn't hurt the appeal I have for her films', it's the perfect "girl next door" look, combined with her talent that truly makes her a unique actress to watch in an era filled with a lot of fake Hollywood "glamor".

But of course this review is about The Time Traveler's Wife, not my crush on the lovely Rachel McAdams. The film revolves around Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana) a man who suffers from a genetic disorder which causes him to shift in and out of time. It's a curse he cannot control that continues to send him back in time to "big" events of his past, or those of ones he loves. It's through this he meets Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams) as a young child and continues to visit her throughout her life instilling a long lasting friendship and relationship with the woman he'll soon marry. But Clare will soon realize that living with the man she's been infatuated with her whole life is not as rosy as she'd imagined, because within a blink of an eye he could be gone.

If your looking for a romance equal to The Notebook you might be somewhat disappointed. The Time Traveler's Wife definitely has its emotional moments but its nothing as close to that of The Notebook, which I have to attribute to a much superior storyline. Even then the film is pretty depressing that times, though it does have it's humorous moments, so if your looking for a feel good movie to see this weekend this probably isn't the film for you. The performances by Rachel McAdams, and at times Eric Bana, really nail this across in some of the films more emotional scenes. I can't say anything bad about McAdams performance, it's exactly what you would expect from her. Bana on the other hand doesn't have the same consistency in his role, though I must say he was a lot better than I expected him to be since I've never really been too impressed with him in previous films.

The only aspect of the film I think will truly cause issues with the viewers is ironically the time traveling. Its causation is never really explained except that it is some form of genetic disorder, yet in the opening of the film one would think the causation was young Henry hitting his head on the front seat of the car during a car accident, which appeared to trigger his first travel, but occurrences later in the film seem to quell that theory of mine. Then the other growing question is since he can't appear to completely control it why is he sent to these different places in time? The film attempts to explain it as "big" events draw him back to the past yet a lot of the places he travels in time seem to be rather insignificant, places he in and out of in a matter of minutes. If you continue to attempt to reason it all out you also begin to question the meeting between him and Clare. Did they originally meet as adults and then he began going back in time to her as a child or did he first meet her as child? It's all a rather confusing aspect of the story that probably needs to be accepted and not reasoned, because ultimately time travel in any type of story seems to throw logical reason into the wind. So my best advice during or after the film try not to reason any if it out and you'll be a lot more satisfied with this film.

In the end what the time traveling does manage to do is take the film full circle from beginning to a rather ironic end. That's all I can say without ruining the film, but you'll begin to see what I mean by ironic in the films' final ten minutes. Overall, The Time Traveler's Wife is an interesting spin on a romance that literally spans time itself, even though at times it's unique spin might be more of risk than a reward the film as a whole still comes together nicely.

7/10