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Henry (Eric Bana) shares a temporary, tender moment with Clare (Rachel McAdams) in “The Time Traveler’s Wife.” |
It occurred to me about halfway through “The Time Traveler’s Wife” that the whole ludicrously silly premise of this chronological jigsaw puzzle would have worked much better as a black comedy.
Or at least a comic indictment of women who fantasize about men who never show up when they’re supposed to, constantly disappear when you need them, pop in at the most inopportune moments, and make waiting a full-time occupation for their lovers.
Instead, director Robert Schwentke remains faithful to Audrey Niffenegger’s 2004 best-seller by recreating its achingly serious romance between a patient Chicago artist and a Newberry Library clerk with a genetic abnormality that drops him willy-nilly in and out of time periods like a handsome Billy Pilgrim from “Slaughterhouse Five.”
Aussie-born Eric Bana plays Henry, whose gene flaw causes him to disappear one moment, then reappear at another time in a different place around Chicago. Because his clothes stay behind, poor naked Henry must find new duds each time he skips through the time-space continuum. (Read more…)