Skip to main content

The Time Traveler's Wife - Movie Opinion

When I first saw the preview for The Time Traveler's Wife I thought 'chick flick' however, the movie has a time travel component (one of my favorite sci-fi subjects) so I was interested to know more.

If you're a time travel fan too then this film will not only not disappoint but it also breaks all the 'rules' of time travel. However, having said that, it's also a great chick flick too (especially for Eric Bana fans).

As with all my movie opinions, this isn't a review as such, it's more of a commentary on what I found interesting. I'm assuming you've seen the film but if not I'll try not to write anything that will spoil it for you. If you don't know what the film is about then you may like to click the link in the first paragraph which will take you to the movies page on the Internet Movie Data Base.

Quickly, on the plot, Eric Bana plays Henry DeTamble, a man born with a genetic condition that causes him to involuntarily travel both forwards and backwards through time. He has some subconscious control over where he travels to (usually places he knows or at least within range of places he knows) but it not an exact science.

In one of his time travels he meets his future wife, Claire, as a very young girl and develops a friendship over time that eventually leads up to her, as a grown woman, meeting him before he has traveled back in time to meet her. Confused yet?

People who enjoy the pseudo-science of time travel will have a field day analyzing the time travel aspects of this movie to death. The rest of you - be well advised not to try and rationalize the logic of time travel in this film and take it at face value for what it is. All you need to keep track of is which Henry are you currently watching, Henry from the past, present or future?

I liked that Henry's ability to time travel is a genetic condition. It's not a new idea but as something he can't control it does present some interesting challenges for him and those who know of his ability to overcome.

It's also interesting that he appears to be the only known person in the world with this condition. I did like that the film did not spend too much time explaining what caused his condition (initially) nor did they go into too much detail when Henry finally seeks outside help to try and control what he has. The research of his condition seems plausible but doesn't actually explain anything.

What makes this film a real discussion point for time travel enthusiasts is that it breaks the one common rule amongst many time travel films and TV shows - meeting your future or past self. It's often thought that this could be a catastrophic event (think Doc Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future films explaining what could happen if Marty's Girl Friend met her future self). In The Time Traveler's Wife this is something of a casual event, happening multiple times.

Further to that, as in the Back to the Future films, meeting your past self could be catastrophic because you could change your future to the point where the future as you know it ceases to exist in a major way for your life.

What's problematic in The Time Traveler's Wife is that Henry claims that he is unable to change the future for major events (such as the death of his mother at the beginning of the film) yet he spends much of the film influencing the future and even using it to change his present financial circumstances.

There are also a number of paradoxes in the film such as when Henry and Claire are looking for a house to buy. The house they choose is based on a house that Henry has already seen in the future. If his experience of the house they choose is based on his visit to the house in the future then how did they come to be living in that house before Henry had seen it in his time travels?

The film makes no apologies for these paradoxes and, in fact, embraces them by pointing them out on occasion and simply accepting them without question.

As I said, if you're not a time travel buff, analyzing the technicalities of time travel in this film will only tear open major inconsistencies using a science that isn't real, only speculative.

For fans of time travel then, if you can get over all the so called 'rule breaking' and try to make sense of the time line, there's a lot of interesting discussion to be had. You may even find yourself buying the best selling novel this is based upon to find out more.

Comments

  1. Was wondering what this was like - can't remember if any reviews showed for it on the Carousel/Hoyts site.

    I like Time Travel films, but I'll probably get confused with all this plot, as I do try to analyse things!

    I've got three movie passes to use by February, so I hope the punched out hole includes February as well! Was waiting for something decent to come on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wouldn't worry about the complexities of the Time Travel aspect of this film too much. It's more about the relationship and the way it changes and evolves over time than it is about the time travel its self.

    So long as you know which Henry you're looking at (and they make it fairly easy to distinguish between them) you should understand and enjoy the film.

    ReplyDelete
  3. and he looks very nice with his shirt off :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated by an actual human (me, TET) and may not publish right away. I do read all comments and only reject those not directly related to the post or are spam/scams (I'm looking at you Illuminati recruiters... I mean scammers. Stop commenting on my Illuminati post!).

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

Introducing the Second Sunday Skateboard Sessions - Doing Less to Skateboard More

This was my second heelflip attempt of the day. I was pleased I at least got the full rotation even if I didn't land it. I  am determined to keep skating for as long as possible, though, since my last post in May 2024, about reigniting my kickflip battle at age 54 , I've probably been skateboarding less than I had hoped. Still haven't landed that elusive kickflip either. Strangely I've been wanting to film myself skateboarding again but have been reluctant to do so because it can be a bit of a hassle trying to create interesting content, not to mention a lot of editing, if you want to capture the full journey of learning a trick. I really hate editing. Looking at my camera equipment the other day I was thinking what is the most minimal setup that I can put together that would make it easy to film skate videos anywhere? I landed on using my Samsung A13, Android phone, mounted on a GoPro selfie stick that has a tripod base in the handle, and a wireless mic I bought some t...

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices.  My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe?  Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Image to Video Generator to Animate Art That Started as a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch

B ack in October of 2023 I used Prome AI's Sketch Rendering feature to color a 23 year old rough pen sketch I did of a princess watching butterflies, sitting next to a waterfall in the forest. You can read more about that in my previous article,  The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Art Generator to Color and Enhance a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch The three images I used to create my final image (bottom right). Notice how closely the AI has followed my line art sketch (top left) but in the first image (top right) has misinterpreted the waterfall as some kind of large tree stump. Prome's render of the artwork was pretty good but I did end up creating a composite image myself from two of the best renders, to get my final image. Since then AI Image to Video has come a long way, particularly when it comes to creating animation from artwork and maintaining the art style for the whole generation. AI still does much better with turning photographic images to video but I found ...

Two Former Right Wing Australian PM's Call Out President Trump and His America First Approach

Q uite often, leaders on all sides of politics, once they've retired from office, become the kind of person, with a political view that I would've supported, if they had been that person with that viewpoint, when they were leaders. Case in point, two former right wing, Australian Prime Ministers were individually interviewed about President Trump's negative impact on Australia and global politics in general. Both said things that even a left leaning 'woke' voter like myself could get behind and nod in agreement with. Keep in mind both these former PM's are right wing politicians that should be aligned with the US Republican party, and President Trump's views on many issues. Malcolm Turnbull Mr Turnbull, like President Trump is a businessman turned politician. He's a person I was all set to vote for until he aligned himself with the Australian Liberal Party. Which was a little unexpected for me because up to that point his politics sounded more left than ...

TV Series Review: Skeleton Crew (2024) (Disney+) *No Spoilers*

I f you saw the trailer for  Skeleton Crew  and decided the show looked too much like Star Wars for little kids, and didn't watch, you missed out on a real treat. While I will say this show was definitely targeted at bringing in younger fans to the Star Wars universe, it is very much more like family viewing than kids only TV. Not to mention, characters are literally gunned down or murdered on this show, but without the really graphic violence you might see on a more adult orientated show. It's actually no more kid only orientated than the first series of Stranger Things  (2016), or even the original  Star Wars  (1977) movie. In fact the whole show is a not so subtle homage to original Star Wars (1977), Treasure Island  (1950), and eighties movies like The Goonies  (1985), ET  (1982), Explorers  (1985) and others. The plot is very straight forward. A group of children, living in the Star Wars equivalent of the suburbs, find an aband...

Meanwhile, In Australia... The World's Most Boring Government Is Fine... We're All Fine.

That's um... What's his name? T o be honest, I stopped following politics in Australia years ago. The only time I check in is usually around election time just to see which set of woke lefty independents, I'm going to vote for, ahead of my fallbacks of the Greens, and then Labor. Despite my sister trying to categorise me as more of a 'left brained' person I definitely lean 'right brained' more at home with my cry baby, woke, alphabet, lefty people. (For the record, if this is the first musing of mine you've ever read, I'm a straight white male who identifies as an artist... Male artist - just in case you were thinking artist is some new kind of gender you hadn't heard of). This year is an election year for our Federal Government, potentially the world's most boring government, for no other reason than during its entire term, if you asked me who was our Prime Minister I'd actually have to stop and think for a moment. Maybe our 31st PM shou...

The Path to Becoming a Successful Visual Artist Selling Work for Thousands, or Even Millions of Dollars

I'm calling this, 'Stand Up Comedian'. Image by Leonardo.ai and TET. I  consider myself to be a successful working artist. I use the term 'working' quite loosely but basically what I mean is I work for myself, I earn money from my art or knowledge, and most of my time I can create art that interests me. I've never been motivated to be a 'career' artist. By that I mean, an artist whose work is displayed in all the top galleries, and that the super rich buy as more of an investment for wealth, than a love of art. Which is not to say these investors don't love art but when you're buying a single artwork for thousands, or even millions, of dollars, you're generally looking for a return on that investment too. That said, I'm not opposed to artists who want that kind of recognition. Certainly, if you're prepared to do the work, in countries like Australia, you can earn a nice passive income off the secondary market. Which means each time yo...