Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 classic kids book, A Wrinkle in Time can be found on every bookcase in nearly every home or school library. It is a staple in the children’s fantasty genre. Thus, millions of people hold this story dear because it takes them back to when they first read the book. Clearly, this book has become a passion project for many aspiring filmmakers.
Some passions aren’t meant to be explored.
After the disappearance of Meg’s (Storm Reid) scientist father, she has been very troubled, both at home and school. However, her optimistic and brilliant little brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) has summoned three strange space women to help them find their long lost father.
Ahem…
There are projects, both released and unreleased, that have been deemed “unfilmmable.” A Wrinkle in Time is a story that is better left on the page and not on movie screens. Or perhaps, maybe it’s just the crew, that made this abomination of an adaptation, that’s at fault. Director Ava DuVernay and her team seemed like they were handed the script and told to make something quick and that it will be fixed in post production.
She relies only on close-ups, which makes it feel that every actor was recorded in an isolated studio. When a magnifying glass is place on the stilted dialogue and wooden acting, it only accentuates how non cinematic this experience is.
That’s not to say the visuals aren’t trying to force-feed you into thinking this is a cool movie. All credit to the animators who borrowed the CG backdrops of Alice Through the Looking Glass, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Oz: The Great and Powerful. This movie is a glorified screensaver that is only missing an aquarium world and a world of ever-expanding colorful pipes to make a complete computer background set.
Remember when Peter Jackson took years to adapt The Lord of the Rings? He, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens painstakingly wrote that amazing trilogy and introduced Middle Earth to viewers who had never seen it before. They truly mastered the art of exposition and world building. Compare that to A Wrinkle in Time where kids are having a random conversation in a backyard and three random space ladies show up to help them “tesser” to a new planet. What’s tesser you ask? You’ll have to just go along with it, because the movie jumps right into the acid-laced insanity.
It’s stunning how miscast this movie is. Reid, McCabe and Levi Miller are all kid actors, so you can’t fault them for being annoying to the point where they’d fit well into a Disney Channel series. I honestly blame the direction. There’s so little for them to do in this movie except to react to their environments. Reid does have a moment to shine late in the movie.
And now for the space witches. Reese Witherspoon is actually delightful as the rookie space guide, Mrs. Whatsit. She is easily the best written character in the movie and is having a blast in the role. Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) is an ever-smiling walking quote calendar. She has no impact in the movie, and it’s a role that anyone could have played. It’s frankly wasted on Mindy Kaling, who’s extremely clever, but has no chance to show her talents here. Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) is apparently the big selling point of the movie. And by big, I mean it. She shows up in two prominent scenes ranging from 2-6 stories in height. While everyone else is chilling on the CG green planet, Oprah just paces around as a big giant space god in an aluminum dress.
I feel that every directorial decision was based on “How interesting will this look?” as compared to “Can audiences actually follow this and enjoy this (without being high)?”
A Wrinkle in Time is dreadful. It’s colorful enough for kids, but there’s actually entertaining movies out there that you should take them to instead. There are moments of goodness scattered here, but there’s no looking past the bad script, stilted acting and terrible camera work. D
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