Ebert Did It Better: Gasbag Reviews

Starring: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams, Ron Livingston

Director: Robert Schwentke

Time travel in films can be a tricky proposition, even if handled in a near linear manner.  I was influenced early on by watching “Back To The Future” and “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.”  These movies taught that travelling through time can be tricky, and lots of things can be messed up unless you go back and set them right.  Which, of course, you can always do in the nick of time.  “The Time Traveler’s Wife” takes a more unique course, and the result is much more challenging and somewhat more rewarding.

Eric Bana’s character is introduced to a stress early on in his life that leads him into a life of uncontrolled jumps through time.  Between two of these jumps, he meets a young woman (McAdams) who insists that she shares his destiny.  In the course of the next hour and a half, you take the strangest trip through his life experiencing frustrations that are parallel, if not at the same time, to the woman who eventually becomes his wife and the mother of their child.

Bana does a great job of mixing the wonder of his experience, along with the wisdom he accrues in scenes that often intersect.  McAdams’ frustrations and happiness are a little more difficult to track.  This is more than made up for with her inherent charisma.  The movie is well paced and does not linger on explanations.  This gives a sense of appropriate wonder, even if the ending goes beyond the laws from earlier time travelling films and goes right into unresolved blissful hope in the form of their child.

That’s kind of the way life should be.

****  from me and from Shanyn, too.