WARNING: This blog contains spoilers about the movie The Time Traveler's Wife. Do not read if you don't want this movie spoiled. Or if you really liked it. :P
Let me just start off by saying that this movie has a few touching moments. While I didn't cry at all during the movie, there were a few "awww" (both good and bad) moments.
That said, not even a mostly-naked Eric Bana could salvage this movie for me.
Premise: A man (Bana) has a genetic anomoly that causes him to randomly travel through time, disappearing and reappearing at random (but oh so important) moments (for example, their wedding day and later that night).
I lost interest upon hearing that the main character (the wife, not the time traveler) had first met him when she was six years old. She met him on one of his travels back in time, and had loved him ever since. Creepy!!
The main character is a spoiled, emotionally-stunted victim. She marries her Prince Charming - the man she had met few times in her past, but never knew him, until she met him as an adult. She is emotionally stuck as a child - she fell in love with him when she was a little girl and then married him. While the fairy tale element of that is sweet, the actual application is creepy and sets her up to be an emotional cripple.
I wanted to strangle her at least twice in the movie.
The first time was when she played the victim card in a fight with Bana's character. After she had several miscarriages (remember, the time-traveling is genetic), he tries to persuade her to adopt, which she adamantly refuses (saying something like "Can't I want one normal thing in my life?" wahhhhhh). He then goes and gets a vasectomy behind her back. A dastardly thing to do, yes, but I emphathize with him way more than her. In the ensuing argument, she accuses him of tricking her and making her love him and all that BS. She yells "I didn't have a choice!!!" She can go to hell, in my not-so-humble opinion. She most certainly had a choice.
The second time was when she had sex with a younger version of her husband to get pregnant that very night. Of course, she carries this baby to term and everything is A-OK, with the daughter (of course) becoming a time-traveling prodigy. Never mind that she never thinks about the repercussions, or about the genetic problems, or how messed up her daughter's life would turn out to be, or any of that. And she gets her perfect little girl, in the end.
Bleh. This movie really illustrates the creepy ramifications of the "princess" fantasies that many little girls grow up with. I mean, even though she's a well-off artist (yay rich parents!), he still wins the lottery for her.
The main character completely turns me off to this movie. As an Army wife, I was ready to identify with the plight of a woman whose husband disappears and can never be sure when he'll return. But what the movie misses is that there is always a choice. The victim mentality in this movie frustrates and infuriates me.
I had more empathy and connection to the man who, despite his best efforts, can never truly be a part of the world he so desparately tries to build.
So, yeah. Stupid freaking movie.
