“I can’t put words in [Madeleine L’Engle’s] mouth – and I worked with one of our producers, Catherine Hand, who was very close to her – but that wasn’t her intention”.
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She wrote that publishers had trouble with “A Wrinkle in Time” “because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too hard for children, and was it a children’s or an adult’s book, anyhow?” Not enough of the film feels like a true gamble of fate, and even when things are at their most dire, I never got the feeling that anyone or anything was in any real danger, but rather it was a vehicle for Meg to discover her own self-love. Ninety-nine percent of movies are made for people like me. A Wrinkle in Time’s biggest misjudgment is the expectation that it will appeal to both the adults who read the book years ago and the children who are experiencing the magic for the first time. For me, this is Chris Pine’s finest moment on film to date. Storm Reid, for her part, manages to make Meg a deep and nuanced character even in the face of all the unusual and sometimes clunky dialogue. The ending is especially affecting, which improved my overall impression of the film by a significant factor.
Perhaps younger audience members could relate to the trials and tribulations Meg goes through, but it feels too easy of a resolution. Even the film’s youngest actor, Deric McCabe, does well in conveying the interesting and dynamic character of Charles Wallace Murry. The complexity of science fiction here seems repurposed to fulfill the film’s need for dazzling visuals, rather than to bend the mind. “A Wrinkle in Time” fails to present anything tangible, and the end result leaves the audience scratching their heads.
Despite its lackluster opening, “A Wrinkle in Time” helped make history at the box office this weekend.
Throughout the film, its main character Meg is struggling at school after her father’s sudden and mysterious disappearance. Whenever Pine was on-screen, he really brought everything into focus.
Beyond that, the film doesn’t do a good job of world-building-there’s not a clear over-arching explanation of what the rules are and how this universe works.
Winfrey’s character, remains solid and reliable. While these can be forgiven due to the performers’ ages, the rest cannot. A chatty neighbor named Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) appears at their door. “You were the only Caucasian journalist of any gender to see it, understand it and seriously ask me about it”. The cause is close to her heart: she was bullied when she was younger.
DuVernay has set out to make an ambitious fantasy epic, and in many ways, she succeeds. It’s not a particularly strong performance from Reid, but she’s not bad. Right? Well, sort of. “There’s a good movie in here somewhere, but it’s beset with too many obligations, and maybe too much in the way of expectations”, he wrote.
‘That’s what our industry should be now and that’s what I think we’re moving towards’.
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Unfold your love (or hate) for all things “A Wrinkle in Time” in the comments. As they travel across the universe, they constantly visit new and intriguing places. People can forget how important it is for tweens and teens to see that the attributes they hate most about themselves can actually be the attributes that attract people the most. In Athens, Ga., 13-year-old entrepreneur Beau Shells raised ,000 to send Athens girls with an interest in STEM to see A Wrinkle in Time.
