Review of The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) by Keenan S — 12 Jan 2014

The Time Traveler's Wife is a frustrating misfire. Though it has an intriguing premise, the acting is quite good, the music is good, and the visuals are nice, the film has a disastrous story that is absolutely filled with holes, filled to the brim with tired romance cliches, and it's also quite boring through a good portion of the film.

One of the problems with the plot is the main character's insistence that he cannot alter the past, and yet, is clearly doing so through the entire film along with multiple versions of himself traveling to various points in his life, like knowing the winning numbers of a lottery, letting his past self know about his time traveling abilities, telling his future wife as a child about how she will be his wife and other details, and many other instances of him clearly altering the past and raising numerous questions in the process.

Also, despite having a time traveling plot, the film falls back on old cliches, such as how the main character is constantly away from his wife (Only instead of being at work, he time travels a lot), marital troubles about wanting a baby but can't for most of the film, and many other things that seem more appropriate for Nicholas Sparks-related drivel.

So, for the plot, the time traveling aspect is convoluted and full of holes, and the romance aspect of the film is generic and seen countless times before. Plot is everything in a romance film, and this film's plot just doesn't work even with all the neat ideas that can be seen at times.

What really makes this film frustrating is how the acting is actually quite good and there are some rather effective scenes during the last forty minutes of the film. I especially enjoyed the interactions between Henry and his future daughter, Alba, along with some scenes where he visits his dead mother.

There are some wonderful scenes that are sadly wasted in a film that is generally quite awful during the first hour and doesn't start to really show signs of life until after the halfway point. That's what makes this film so frustrating.

Unlike most other romance films I see which are pretty terrible through their entire running times and have no interesting ideas at their cores, this one isn't a total disaster from beginning to end and does show some life, albeit too late to save itself.

What a disappointment, this could have been something great.