Stream it now The Time Traveler's Wife

IMDb rating: 7.0 (70,917 votes)
IMDb ID: 0452694
Duration: 107 min
Release Date: August 14, 2009
Solar rating: 3 votes
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A romantic drama about a Chicago librarian with a gene that causes him to involuntarily time travel, and the complications it creates for his marriage.


Drama, Mystery, Romance, Sci-Fi, Fantasy produced in 2009 [USA]

 
 
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Love this movie!!!!!!!!

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ok I agree it is a bit confusing: so Let me try to explain what I understood about his Time travel plight:
there are several Henrys who all belong to their own specific timeline in his own Life. Those Henrys travel back and forth and for better or worse warn others about certain events or themselves.
Now the problem is Henry can't control it and the nonsense is he is able to go back to the same place and the same time a week later - he actually gives her a date!- to visit Claire all throughout her growing up??? Now that makes no sense. All that is said as an explanation : "It's like gravity". Seriously?


Now I don't understand either why he says he can't stay: seems simple enough he's been visiting her for decades!


There are definitely huge loopholes in this movie if you have a half a brain, but the heart and emotions are amazing.
So yeah, would have been awesome if it made more sense and more answers were given to us during the story but I still really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who doesn't think Jackass is the best flick ever made.


My 2cents.
Laurent

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Eric Bana is such a talented actor and Arliss Howard playing his dad does a fine job too. But the character of Rachel McAdams is unbelievable. I do not know the book plot, but this fails as a movie. To hear McAdams say she wouldn't choose any other life but the one she's had with her regularly not-there husband made me choke. And not with tears. What the film shows clearly is the misery this man suffers physically and emotionally due to his rare "time-traveling gene." A novel twist on the genre. Arliss Howard speaks the most truthful, bitter words in the film when Bana tells him he is marrying. "Why would anybody want you?" He is literally an invisible man for days or weeks at a time. He time travels naked and has to break in to stores to get clothes while he "visits" the other times he inhabits. He has no control over when he leaves, though he repeatedly visits places where people he loves exists, an interesting part of the tale. He ends up with a daughter who time travels, but knows how to control her disappearances. This part makes the film annoying. Why can't she teach her father the trick? I suppose the moral of the story is that love is the only thing that keeps us anchored in time, place and emotion. But in less than two hours I was tired of this man's comings and goings and could not believe those involved in his life, no matter how good he was, or how loving, could not have given up either after decades of his slipping away. This was like loving an alcoholic who never stops drinking. I suppose we are supposed to feel sorry for the character, and you can't help but feel sorry. But his comings and goings were emotionally draining and destructive. A better title would have been "The Time Traveler's Life," because his life affects everyone around him. I think I need to read the book to see what was lost or gained in this adaptation.
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this movie made me hate myself for watching it till the end. how twisted someone's mind has to be to come up with this idea ? and it earned 94mln world wide! i don't know .... i need some time to cope with this. this movie creates new genre "pedophiliac sci-fi absurdram" known also as "waterfall of bullshit".
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After finishing the book i thought it would be a good idea to watch this film. i was still on a high of how good the book was. What a bad idea this was. it was boring, it missed loads of things out and it has ruined the book for me know when i think of Henry all i can see is Eric Bana's face. Also they had Claire all wrong they made her look perfetic in the movie just a stupid girl but in the book she is a smart, strong women. I don't blame the actors there acting was solid. They just didn't translate it to film well.
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very original and good movie ! :)
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Instead of a promising love story, the movie featured more suspense and creepiness than love and mood scenes.
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Audrey Niffenegger's book is the type of bestseller that sweeps the charts every so often when Richard and Judy, or some other influential personality, decrees it to be a good read. Loath though I am to discovering books in this way, The Time Traveler's Wife was an interesting story, and although by no means perfect, it was one of the better "Book Club" type recommendations.

This film adaptation is thankfully not too reverent to the source material, and isn't afraid to give proper focus to both Henry and Clare by cutting some of the more unwieldy subplots and characters to place the focus on their relationship. There's been an overriding tendency in films recently to show too much backstory- when G.I. Joe has flashbacks, you know the problem has gone way too far.

Director Robert Schwentke understands that we don't need to know every single detail of our protagonists' lives just to care about them- if anyone needs that, the book will enrich your knowledge- and instead moves forward with the already slightly boggled narrative.

Time travel is a tricky proposition in films from time to time, as it either has to make complete sense with causality or lull the audience into suspending their disbelief by breaking the fourth wall and telling them not to worry about it. This film achieves a neat balance between the two by performing a sleight of hand. The romance is the operative part, and only the most detached people will be wondering why the universe isn't melting around Henry's ears as he cheats on the lottery and takes his wife's virginity before he ever met her.

And for this purpose, Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams are pitch perfect casting. Bana needs more good work like this full stop, and McAdams is as endearing as she usually is in such roles. And because they're so good, you allow yourself to be taken in by it all. There were a couple of slightly mawkish scenes and one totally out of place bit of dialogue that jarred me for a moment or two, but the film drew me back in soon enough.

It's for reasons like this that I could imagine The Time Traveler's Wife being a rather excellent date movie, but please be aware that it depends on how sensitive your companion is- the ending had a lot of people crying in the screening I attended, and that might not be how you want to end a date.

However, wading through the throngs of bereaved viewers on my way out of the cinema, I was very much possessed of the feeling that this is a film that deserves to do well. If you read the book, you should like the film, but be prepared for narrative liberties that enhance the viewing experience.
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Mildly enjoyable but pointless.
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Although I am a believer in reading before seeing, and doing so in the case of The Time Traveler's Wife sets up a strong basis for expectations and background knowledge; the film still stands alone as a moving, unidealised portrayal of love under unusual, if not somewhat creative circumstances. Although there are some elements of deeper characterisation missing, the editing of the movie creates suspense and effectively mirrors the division in narration and timeline that the book jumps around from so brilliantly. There are moments of confusion and questionable plausability in the concept of Henry's time travelling, some of which can be answered by the book, others that like with any creative and imagined reality involve a degree of placement by the reader/viewer in this other world, in order to fully immerse themselves in the possibilities of the plot. Don't expect a heart-warming happy love story; this is in fact traumatic at times, but much to the films credit: love lost afterall is often a more captivating and emotionally provoking premise than that of love found, happy ending.
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