The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)
Starring: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams, Ron Livingston, Michelle Nolden,. Arliss Howard, Stephen Tobolowsky
Directed by: Robert Schwentke
Rating: 
Admitting you like Audrey Niffeneger's best selling novel The Time Traveler's Wife is like shorthand for confessing to being a card-carrying member of the Richard and Judy book club, with a copy of The Lovely Bones in your organic string bag and a cat and a half bottle of Chardonnay waiting for you at home.
But being cool has never been that high on my agenda, so I'll 'fess up to the fact that I absolutely love this torrid, gritty, heartbreakingly romantic book. But would the film version capture the vivid, visceral passion of the novel, or descend into soppy weepy territory: Love Story for the Back to the Future generation?
The good news is, The Time Traveler's Wife the movie doesn't disappoint. A rugged, nicely biff Eric Bana is perfectly cast as the chronologically challenged Henry DeTamble, who, thanks to a freak genetic condition, is unable to prevent himself slipping in and out of time, leaving nothing but a pile of clothes behind, while Mean Girl Rachel McAdams possesses the requisite blend of vulnerability and determination as his eponymous wife, Claire, who's left behind alone each time he vanishes.
Like the book, the film is more than just a fascinating, involving romance, but raises interesting questions about how and why we fall in love. Claire has been in love with Henry all her life, since he time travels back to see her as a six-year-old girl: is love, then, predestined or do we have a choice? If we know how the future will unfold, will it make a difference to the way we feel?
My one disappointment with the film is that it doesn't ground itself historically as well as the book does. For while Henry's timeline is irrevocably screwed, Claire's is resolutely tied to the '70s, '80s and '90s, and, as she is exactly the same age as me, the backdrop to her school days, university years and working life are all deeply, nostalgically familiar. So no Violent Femmes gigs, 9/11 or AIDS; instead both sets and characters are dressed in a deliberately timeless, Bohemian style rather than try to recreate the drab look of the '90s. Oh well.
That aside, The Time Traveler's Wife is a thoroughly engaging, original film that stays just the right side of sentimentality while still tugging on the ol' heart strings. So pack a few hankies and get down to the cinema: it's time well spent.
