Journal & Topics Media Group

Movie Scene: Getting Lost In ‘A Wrinkle In Time’


Reese Witherspoon and Storm Reid in “A Wrinkle in Time.”

“A Wrinkle in Time” (110 min., Rated PG for thematic elements and some peril). Rating: 6 out of 10.

For all its visionary wonderment of fantastical worlds that bend time and space, the heart of this children’s fable, based on a 1962 novel by Madeleine L’Engle, is obscured by all of the film’s physical attributes, colorful landscapes, imaginative creatures and caricatures, and wall-to-wall music. The heart I speak of is what is what’s inside the soul and being and mind of a 13-year-old girl looking for answers to an enigmatic emptiness inside her she can’t get rid of. In this film, “A Wrinkle in Time,” chiefly dealing with a child’s perspective on life within and without her realm of existence where there are limitless boundaries to explore. It’s a lot to grasp, but that, in a surrealistic context, is only the tip of the imaginary iceberg.

Having been written 66 years ago and the subject of much interpretation all these years, it leaves little wiggle room when you think about the expanse of the limits covered in the book when so much work has been done in the world of cinema to challenge ones imagination — especially from a child’s perspective. The books by C.S. Lewis and Tolkien — and film adaptation of so many imaginative children’s tales like Percy Jackson, “The Neverending Story,” “The Golden Compass” and so many others, you wonder by this time how much room is left out there to explore. Director Ava DuVernay (“Selma”) chose to take on this assignment — breathe life into a 66-year-old concept and make it seem fresh — by casting big name stars Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine, and TV personality Mindy Kaling, along with gifted adolescent actors to capture the essence of a book that reaches inward to touch your inner-being.

I know…it’s all-cerebral and in your minds-eye that “A Wrinkle in Time” exists, and despite its age, it is still fertile ground to exploit. As with all those previous books and films adapted from so many outstanding literary sources, this film is about a 13-year-old girl lost in grief trying to cope with an emptiness that only an out-of-body experience can fulfill. Just as the children who ventured to distant planets or faraway lands like in “The Neverending Story,” “Chronicles of Narnia” and even in “The Wizard of Oz” books, so does Meg Murry (Storm Reid) take a trip to distant worlds as part of the adventure she must take to find answers to her loneliness of having lost her father years ago. The child actress Storm Reid was an amazing find…smarter and more articulate than most adults…wiser, too…but distracted by all that frizzy hair and dark-rimmed glasses that dominate her face. It’s distracting and impossible to ignore.

But Meg is a wonderful child who has been struggling with self-worth issues…is ridiculed and tormented by other children at school who make fun of her oddities (she’s smarter than them)…and for the fact that Meg just can’t grasp the mysterious disappearance of her physicist father (Pine). In fact, she’s devastated as is her mother (Gugu Mbatha-Raw)…though I can’t say the same for her younger adopted brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) — a boy genius much like Meg. Meg, Charles and a popular boy at school, Calvin O’Keefe (Levi Miller) are swept into a world of pure fantasy called the tesseract (traveling in the 5th dimension) by three celestial angels — Mrs. Which (Oprah), Mrs. Whatsit (Witherspoon) and Mrs. Who (Kaling) who take the children to mystical worlds across the Universe in search of her lost father — and to confront a powerful evil force called “the black thing”, or simply called “It.” In this case, self-doubt and non-believing are your chief enemies.

It is on these worlds, all different, colorful and magical in so many different ways, that the children are challenged to find answers — aided by the three Mrs.’s — and where they encounter the likes of Michael Pena and Zach Galifianakis in heavy costuming. Rated PG, it is an epic adventure geared for children where the evil that lurks isn’t that scary, but effective enough for youngsters in the audience to understand. Though we all know the journey Meg is meant to be as a soul-searching mission to fantastical worlds, the narrative starts losing its grip on the human aspects of her journey. The screenplay screams to make Meg more reachable whose angst and anguish can be empathized with, so that children can feel her pain of loss and loneliness. To me, Meg comes across more as an independent free-spirit (like her father) and a self-imposed outcast…and anomaly from the other kids. I think she was meant to be different and apart from the norm.

The dichotomy between what exists inside Meg where all the answers are and the vastness and wonderment of worlds they visit is a wide gulf. Somewhere in all this, the wisdom and childishness of the three “angels” and the conflict that lies in confronting the dark force that is engulfing the Universe — and thus the realm inside our love and belief — get kind of hokey. We start losing touch with the “humanness“ of Meg, the belligerent behavior of Charles Wallace, the under-use of Calvin and Meg’s mother — and ultimately the emotional connection at the end when something wonderful happens to make Meg’s life complete and meaningful. It’s the cosmic journey part of the film that in too many ways overshadows the true meaning of what makes Meg so endearing.

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