The premise of The Time Traveler's Wife interested me in part due to my great affection for the now-cancelled NBC series Journeyman. In it, Kevin McKidd plays a print journalist who abruptly starts traveling through time as an adult, drawn to different precise moments in history to "fix" something. Eric Bana's Henry in Time Traveler's Wife doesn't have the luxury of changing anything, as in his narrative, everything is fated to end up a certain way. Everything is "written".
Henry first travels as a child, during the most traumatic event in his life. He meets Claire (Rachel McAdams, his destined wife) as a child, and utters the line, "I know you when you are a lady." (paraphrased). Hearing that in the trailer made my wife say, "That looks creepy. And terrible."
She was right that the movie has its share of creepy moments, but it isn't altogether terrible at all. There is plenty that reminds me of the lovely and somewhat forgotten Somewhere in Time, but I was never entirely comfortable with the rather pedophiliac nature of the love story. Middle-aged Henry gives teenage Claire (who has worshipped him since age 6) her first kiss past the midway point in the film, and it was flat-out uncomfortable for me.
The movie is based on an American bestseller*, and I'm certain that most of my discomfort comes from not having that "European" sensibility. Call it a flaw or just who I am, but I just can't get behind the idea of a semi-omniscient adult male psychologically and physically taking advantage of a girl for most of her life. They have a big argument about this, but the only sort of ameliorates the lingering ick for me. Then again, The Phantom of the Opera is considered a great romantic hero, but even in the softened Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical, he's a stalker and creep of the first degree.
My major philosophical disagreement with the film beyond that is that everything is fated, destined. It reinforces the idea that one should never really try to break free of what they feel are their restraints, whether in their home, work, or creative lives. It's an imprisoning ideology, and not one that I find there being a silver lining to at all.
Both DVD and Blu-ray editions of the movie include The Time Traveler's Wife: Love Beyond Words, a 20-minute piece that covers the "why/how everyone got involved and how the book was adapted" ground. The Blu-ray includes the 26-minute An Unconventional Love Story, an exclusive featurette not found on the DVD. Unconventional spends more time trying to explain and justify the movie they made and the deletions they made from the book. I do agree that removing the part where Henry has sex with himself was a good idea. The Blu-ray and DVD hit the street this Tuesday, 9 February.
*CORRECTION: I got this way off, having trusted what I remembered a friend telling me, since I never read the book nor had paid any attention to it whatsoever. An otherwise unhelpful, unstable commenter corrected me on this. I initially referred to Time Traveler's Wife as having been adapted from a German novel, which is obvious to anyone who hits up Wikipedia. That said, the only thing changed in the above article is "The movie is based on a German book," I stand by the "European sensibility" line. Clare confronts him and asserts herself, but still goes passive/submissive in the end, justufying his creepy-pedo thing.