We interrupt your normal stream of food and fitness for our occasional wandering into movies or travel! There may be spoilers in this review.
There have been many highly anticipated films in 2018. Some performed well, critically and/or in the box office, while others didn’t meet expectations. If you read our review for Black Panther, you’d know that we absolutely loved the film. With some huge blockbusters slated for summer release, Disney wanted to try to take control of Winter/Spring, and their adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time would help do that, or so they hoped.
A Wrinkle in Time didn’t meet the studio’s expectations, as box office numbers were mediocre and it failed to capture the hearts of critics. Still, we were undeterred and wanted to see if they could recreate a story that we both grew up reading. A Wrinkle in Time wasn’t summer reading in my school, it was part of the curriculum. We read it in class (I believe in 5th grade, possibly 6th) and would discuss it every day, reflecting on it through homework assignments. I would often skip summer reading, but that couldn’t be done here. While I didn’t love the critical analysis in class, I was amazed by the images and adventure. That is exactly what I associate with this story.
Recently, we both read a graphic novel adaptation of the story to prepare ourselves for the movie. It was so eerily similar to the book and created the perfect images of certain characters. We were amazed by the artist’s work and it provided the perfect refresher. It also, unfortunately, refreshed the connection to the book from our childhood and as a result, gave us something to compare the movie to. In the end, we wish we hadn’t done that and almost wish we never read the book in the first place because the movie was quite different.
After the success of Black Panther, I was intrigued to see that “another Black film” was being released. I thought that there really couldn’t be much “whiter” of a book than A Wrinkle in Time, which was written in 1962 by a white women who had a strong Christian faith, but also a love for science. She wrote four sequels to this book after earning the Newberry Medal (for awesome literature for children) for A Wrinkle in Time. While the book was about an oppressed individual overcoming adversity, it was hardly diverse. Then, I found out that it was the first film with a nine-digit budget to be direct by a black woman and it starred a significant number of people of color. Now, none of that is an issue, obviously. You should all know by now how we feel about the color of someone’s skin… it’s not an issue. All that matters is the quality of their work, and unfortunately, I took some major issues with some of the director’s decisions. So let’s just air out the room and tackle that issue now.
Storm Reid’s performance, as well as the performance of the other actors/actresses were magnificent. Unfortunately, it felt like so many of the characters were so different from their behavior in the original story. Meg was nowhere near depressed enough, as hard as that might seem to believe. Charles Wallace needed to be more robotic and even more sure of himself. Most alarming was Kate Murry, who was nowhere near as quirky as she should’ve been. Her character plays such an important role in the development of Meg’s character, and that opportunity was completely missed here. When you saw how they changed that scene with Dr. Murry and Mrs Whatsit, the night of the storm, you knew something was wrong. As for the witches, I appreciated the beautiful costumes, but felt that they were unnecessary. I think this film, across the board, tried to hard to make up for a craziness that the story has from the character’s personalities, by pouring a ton of money into CGI and costumes. Mrs Who’s costumes were absurd and Mrs Which was missing her speech issues. Character development is key and they didn’t even bother to try.
I thought they did a relatively good job with Calvin, Mr Murry, the Happy Medium (don’t mind the gender change) and the Man with Red Eyes. They totally failed to introduce crucial characters though, such as Aunt Beast (they skipped a whole planet) and Meg’s twin brothers, who add a bit to her character development as well. It was interesting to see how they made two female characters male, with the Happy Medium and Principal Jenkins. Other issues came from more key changes to the story, such as making Charles Wallace adopted. I certainly don’t remember that and don’t think it adds anything. Also, it was interesting to see how they somewhat combined IT and The Black Thing, making it seem more like IT was the source of The Black Thing than the actual reality, which is the opposite.
Finally, there are two iconic scenes in the story. One of them was changed slightly, as they depicted Camazotz differently, but was mostly the same. That scene is the one with the children bouncing the balls at the same time. The second one involves the cover image from most of our books, which is Mrs Whatsit’s “animal” form. They decided to go too heavy on CGI and make her some Avatar-Magic the Gathering leaf creature.
I didn’t like the creative direction they took. Plain and simple. Great acting, but not of the iconic characters. Too much CGI and ridiculous costumes. This story does not need all that since it is all about character development. Oh well, better luck with their next iconic adaptation in Hollywood! And as always, stay hungry and fit!
