Review of The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) by Chads. — 16 Aug 2009

Lucky for young Claire, the naked man in the bushes turns out to be her one and only, and not some child rapist, like the girl's killer in Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones". The interaction between Henry(Eric Bana) and Claire's pre-pubescent self is the film's litmus test.

If moviegoers aren't silently humming George Michael's "Father Figure" to themselves while the time traveler chats up the little girl, "The Time Traveler's Wife" just dodged the first bullet.

(The second bullet is if Henry's wormholes seem plausible to a quantum physicist.) Bana's scenes with his future wife as a child are crucial to keeping intact the film's central theme of unconditional love.

(It's a good thing Claire didn't see Jesus, or else she would have winded up a nun.) Not for one second can Henry appear to be hitting on her. Claire's future husband has to treat his pre-wife like he was looking at an old photograph in a keepsake album.

To quote filmmaker Wim Wenders(and Bono), Henry has to be "faraway, so close". When he shakes Claire's hand in that meadow, it's analogous to a husband stroking some picture's surface that embodies the woman he married under a sheath of plastic.

Bana has to convey that Claire's unformed state touches his heart, not his genitals. (***HEY, SPOILER ALERT***) Due to tragic circumstances, late in the film, Henry suddenly seems cruel, keeping Claire(played by the lovely Rachel McAdams) in limbo.

Had Henry returned to the meadow and traumatized young Claire by jumping out of the bushes, his wife wouldn't be perpetually haunted by a "Librarian of Desire". At least the Demi Moore character in Jerry Zucker's "Ghost" found closure.

But they had a kid. End of story. They're a chained melody.