Two stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.9.18
Many reasons exist for this
book’s failure to be adapted to the big screen, during the half-century since
its publication in 1962, all of which director Ava DuVernay and scripters Jennifer
Lee and Jeff Stockwell attempted to ignore, evade or surmount.
Their well-intentioned effort
clearly is heartfelt; it’s just as clearly a failure.
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| Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), younger brother of Meg (Storm Reid), has the ability to "know things." Ergo, he's not surprised by the unexpected appearance of the decidedly unusual Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon). |
Madeleine L’Engle’s Newbery Medal-winning
fantasy was quite unusual for its time: a loquacious children’s novel that
blends discussions of quantum physics and upper-echelon mathematics with a
Christian subtext likely inspired by C.S. Lewis. It’s a “head” story, with much
of the narrative probing the thoughts and interactions of its protagonist, who
— also quite unusual, for its time — is a young teenage girl.
That latter detail no doubt has
made the book more attractive to today’s potential filmmakers, and I guess
DuVernay can be applauded for bravery. But her handling of A Wrinkle in Time is ponderous, boring and weird, with characters
too frequently placing so much weight on flowery speeches, that I’m surprised
the words don’t sink beneath the story’s many unusual landscapes.
Much of the acting is stiff and
clumsy, and Ramin Djawadi’s relentlessly maudlin orchestral score — which
never, ever lets up — makes one want
to scream for relief.
DuVernay practically begs her
audience to regard this film as Momentously Important, and — needless to say —
that’s the death of successful drama. (Indeed, she did beg, during the uncomfortably awkward on-camera appeal that
preceded Tuesday evening’s preview screening.)
The many disappointing
performances notwithstanding, Storm Reid is an exception. She stands tall as
the saga’s heroine, Meg Murry, a brilliant but self-conscious social outcast
who has come to believe that she’s nowhere near the best version of herself.
Since that insecurity is worn like a shroud, she’s naturally a target for
mean-spirited classmates.
Reid handles this role with
delicacy, her flickering, downcast eyes often half-concealed by a hairstyle she
wears as a shield. She blends the awkwardness of departing childhood with the coltish
grace of impending womanhood, her face often on the verge of tears that Meg
likely couldn’t explain. At the same time, Reid exudes the perception and
ferocious intelligence at the core of this girl. She’s a marvelous heroine.
Adolescent angst notwithstanding,
Meg has good reason for her unrelenting despair: She grieves the loss of her
father (Chris Pine), a scientist who simply ... vanished ... four years
earlier. He and his equally brilliant wife (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) — they’re never
given first names, and are addressed simply as Mother and Father — had been
working on a high-falutin’ concept of instantaneous space travel via what’s dubbed
a “tesseract.”
