Walt Disney Pictures
It’s been said that Madeleine L’Engle’s classic novel A Wrinkle In Time is unfilmable, but that didn’t stop Disney from producing a TV movie back in 2003. It also hasn’t stopped them from trying again with a new feature film with some big stars and a big name director, Ava DuVernay, behind the camera. The question is should Disney have even attempted to condense the story into a film that runs less than two hours?
If you’re not familiar with the book … that’s probably a good thing since a lot of the story and some characters have gone missing. I have not read the book (or seen the TV movie) so we’ll just cover the film’s storyline here. Chris Pine plays Jack Murry and Gugu Mbatha-Raw is his wife Dana (I’m not even sure they have first names in the movie but these are their names in the book). Both are scientists studying a way to ‘wrinkle’ time and space to be able to travel millions of light years in the space of a few seconds. No one takes them seriously but dad goes missing one night and four years later he’s still gone, leaving behind his wife, daughter Meg (Storm Reid) and newly adopted son Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe).
Charles Wallace (and yes, that’s how he is referred to throughout the movie) befriends an odd woman named Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) whom he brings into their home. She seems to know just a bit too much about the Murry’s for Dana’s liking. The next day, Charles Wallace brings Meg and her school friend Calvin (Levi Miller) to an old, dilapidated house where they find Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) who speaks in sentences of literature and song lyrics. Meg is having a hard time accepting that these odd women know things about her father. Charles Wallace and Calvin are cool with it. Back at home, the two Mrs show up to tell Meg it’s time to go find her father and then Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) materializes — a bit too large — and convinces Meg that she has the power to bring her father home because of something called the ‘tesseract,’ which is what her parents were working on. I think. It’s not very clear. But she can ‘tesser’ (a word as annoying throughout the film as ‘Charles Wallace’) across the cosmos using her mind … ? And every time they ‘tesser’ the three magical beings get a complete hair, makeup and wardrobe makeover. Do they find dear old dad in one piece? What do you think?
I know the novel of A Wrinkle in Time has been beloved by readers for decades having first been published in 1962, but this film version will hardly become a classic. Prior to the advance screening, audience members were greeted on video by Ava DuVernay who basically said this movie was for 11 and 12 year olds. As far as the look and simplistic tone of the movie, she was right. It’s pretty shocking how cartoonish some of the special effects look, including some flying leaf thing that Whatsit transforms into for a brief moment. The film also just lumbers along at a leisurely pace with little emotional heft or any sense of danger, conflict or suspense built into the story. It’s quite a tough slog for adults to get through with very little to hold their attention, and children may get antsy as well. I had trouble staying awake and I know two other adults who fell asleep during the screening. The kids in attendance must have dozed off too because there was little reaction to anything happening on screen.
Besides the simplistic storytelling, there are some major plot holes that are never addressed as well. One of the main points of conflict is something called the Camazotz (there are plenty of ridiculous names in this story), aka the Black Thing, aka The It. It is a place of pure darkness and when Mrs. Which tells the kids that’s where they have to go to find their father, she also says that she and her companions cannot go there because they are beings of pure light. So Meg ‘tessers’ herself, Charles Wallace and Calvin to Camazotz and who else is there but Which, Who and Whatsis as well. So they can go to Camazotz? At least they don’t stay because the place does begin sucking away their energy, and then like with Dorothy and her friends in The Wizard of Oz, the three Mrs leave Meg with something but nothing except what she already has inside of her. It’s also on Camazotz that Who speaks her own words because … she’s being weakened. What? No, Who! It’s also never really explained why dad couldn’t just ‘tesser’ himself off of Camazotz, but I think that’s when I dozed off for a second (apparently he needed his daughter’s love or energy?). Along the way they meet The Happy Medium (Zach Galifianakis), who helps center Meg, and The Man With Red Eyes (Michael Peña) who with one look ‘possesses’ Charles Wallace.
Aside from the dull script and cartoonish effects, DuVernay — who did a wonderful job directing Selma — seems to be out of her depth with children and adult performances in a children’s film. Storm Reid’s performance is often flat with some bursts of emotion, while Deric McCabe takes precocious to a new level. Levi Miller — who is so good in the Christmas horror flick Better Watch Out — is the bright spot among the kids although he doesn’t have a lot to do. Pine and Mbatha-Raw give the most authentic performances as the parents. Galifianakis does a bit of his schtick before turning serious, and Peña isn’t as menacing as he should be. Witherspoon’s character seems to be a bit on the daft side but she never plays it that far, just sometimes appearing as if she’s seen the script for the first time. Kaling has a series of tragic reaction shots that make it appear as if her character is mildly brain damaged. Oprah’s character is treated with such importance that she has to say all of her lines in slow motion so you get just how important she is. It’s great that Disney entrusted this film to a female director, but perhaps DuVernay just wasn’t the right female for this particular genre (and one has to imagine how Black Panther would have turned out had she taken that job).
There may be a few people who find something to like about A Wrinkle in Time (there was a smattering of applause after the screening), but most audiences are certain to find the entire endeavor lacking the wonder and magic the story requires.
A Wrinkle in Time has a run time of 1 hour 49 minutes and is rated PG for thematic elements and some peril.
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