Disney's Unfortunate Second Attempt at "A Wrinkle in Time."
Don't read this if you're going to see the movie. But better yet, read this and don't see the movie. Read the book--you can get it on Amazon. There's also a graphic novel version on Amazon. Or watch the 2003 version on Amazon.
I have been a fan of the book for over 50 years--I first read it in 1967. I can see why people would say it was visually unfilmable--from one viewpoint. The "problem" is that L'Engle describes scenes in terms of how they make the characters feel rather than how they look. So every reader will have a different mental image of each scene, and whatever concrete images the film makers devise will unavoidably not match that of any reader.
And I was okay with that. My only concern was that a movie try to retain the themes of the author. I can live with a visually different movie, and I understand the twists of getting a novel to film. For instance, the move Bladerunner was tremendously different from Phillip K Dick's original "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," but Bladerunner was a story that Dick might have told--it retained the essential theme of one of his stories.
I'd also seen the earlier Disney production from 2003, and watched it again just last night (rented on Amazon). That production stuck quite close to the novel. It was hampered by television-level special effects and a much slower pace. Critics hated it, but it told the story correctly.
This movie made my wife and me unhappy. They could have made it better; they had the technology.
The only good acting came from Chris Pine, and he wasn't in it much. The rest of the acting reeked, and since the main characters are children, I'm blaming it on the director. Maybe it takes a special kind of directorial talent to get good performances out of immature actors--I suspect it does. They probably can't figure out the inner motivations as well on their own as experienced actors. But the kids in this were terrible--and much worse than the kids in the 2003 production, which got the characters right.
In the novel and 2003 production, Meg is not just awkward and put upon, she's also downright angry at the world and at herself to a much greater extent (she doesn't just throw a ball at another girl, she punches out a couple of boys)--she's angry at a world that has done her wrong--but her love for her little brother is complete, tender, and protective. Storm Reid might have that in her, but it wasn't showing. They may have intended her to seem "angry," but she comes out more as pitiful and victimized one moment and awkwardly angry the next.
In the novel and the 2003 production, the child Charles Wallace is a telepathic prodigy, but his talent also completely alienates him from society. He didn't speak until he was four years old (because he was reading minds), and he never spoke to anyone outside the immediate family. In today's parlance, he would be judged autistic. That's what made it an important story point when he spoke to Mrs Whatsit and to Calvin O'Keefe--it was the signal they must have also been special people, and the reason Meg was willing to accept them herself.
It was also the reason the Charles Wallace character was in the story at all--right from the start, it was made clear in the novel and the 2003 production that he was an important key to what was going to happen later. In the 2003 movie, he was eerie but still essentially childlike and basically likeable...not just a chirpy, annoying brat.
In the novel and 2003 story, the older boy Calvin O'Keefe plays the role of the staunch sidekick. He's got her back. He's the Samwise to her Frodo. In this movie, he is so clearly deliberately nothing but the "pretty but dim-witted damsel in distress" that it stinks. He's only there to look pretty and compliment (not complement) Meg's beauty and brilliance.
Afre Woodard portrayed Mrs Whatsit in the 2003 movie, and she nailed the wackiness of the character. Reese Witherspoon was just flat in comparison. Kate Nelligan played Mrs Whatsit in 2003 with much more whimsy, tenderness, and sense of real caring than Mindy Kaling ground out. Alison Elliott played Mrs Who in 2003, and although I thought hers was the weakest performance, she still did better than Oprah Winfrey's overly lecturing ponderousness. And, boy, was she ponderous; she probably thought she was being imperious, but she was just ponderous.
The kids' father is mostly missing (he's the McGuffin in the story), but in the novel and the 2003 production, he's a scientist who accidentally discovered a hole in space and fell into it, winding up immediately in more trouble than he could handle--but without moral fault of his own. In this production, he turns out to be a wayward father and husband who more deliberately ran off from his family on an adventure, dallied around until he finally got into trouble, and in the end has to beg their forgiveness for being so selfish. Yuk. They didn't have to do that.
The book and the 2003 movie are thorough in laying out the threat and the stakes of the story from very close in the beginning. They make it clearly ominous: Some really bad JuJu has taken the kid's father, threatens the universe, and is already surrounding the earth. They kinda say it in this movie, but the 2003 movie does a much better job of presenting the threat--including the fact that the three witches have already essentially sacrificed themselves to fight it (they were all once stars who gave up their light in battles to hold back the darkness). The book and the 2003 movie make it clear from the beginning that the kids are in preparation for deadly combat, and the stakes are life and death.
That's where the 2003 production ratchets up the drama in its third act and this movie falls most flat. While hampered in special effects, the 2003 movie presents a much more threatening Camazotz and a much more frightening and effective red-eyed man. In the novel and the 2003 production, Camazotz is effectively represented as a society that has given in to the darkness of IT, an entire civilization surrendered to evil. The 2003 movie gets that across even with cheap sets, effects, and wooden acting. This movie seems to miss that entire point. It's a "bad place" only because Oprah said it was a bad place, not because it actually looks or feels like a bad place.
In the novel and the 2003 production, the sequence of the red-eyed man seducing Charles Wallace, winning him, and then Meg's fight to win him back is far, far more sinister and harrowing. It's far more of a mental and emotional fight--not stuff flashing around and blowing up, but the steely face-to-face battle of her love against superior intellect ("If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing").
And that was another thing. In the novel and the 2003 production, Meg's love of Charles Wallace overcomes the power of the monstrous IT. In this movie, Meg wins by convincing Charles Wallace that he loves her--a total turnaround. My wife and I looked at each other and said, "Wut?" This movie makes everything about Meg.
The whole movie was clearly just a vehicle for Oprah to make pronouncements about girl-power--but it was all the great wise women telling her over and over that she had power instead of the movie showing a girl discovering her own power and talents. And telling instead of showing is bad movie making.
There is a lot of excuse-making for this movie that basically says, "Well, it's just a kid's movie!" as though we're wrong to expect much from it. Sorry, but no. The novel is a kid's story that has been wildly successful as such for 50 years. When you're starting with a successful story--stick to it. Screwing with it is not going to make it better.
And kids deserve better. They took an exciting girl's novel--already proven perfect for children--dumbed it down, then injected their own messages that were as annoyingly obvious as bugs on a plate. And, sorry, but they aren't the same caliber of writer as Madeleine L'Engle. You don't dumb down a story for kids. Pixar knows that for sure. Disney used to know it. You give kids intense drama, high stakes, real crises, just as you do for adults...and you don't give them lectures.
Smaller niggles: Instead of referring directly to IT as the novel did ("Beware of IT. IT is a danger to the entire universe"), they referred to IT as "the IT," as in "Beware of the IT. The IT is a danger to the entire universe." It sounded dumb, like "I've been on the Twitter." Another annoying meaningless change just to make a change in something that was already good.
And it had been noted that L'Engle's story had some strong Christian overtones. I don't think so, really--that's always been a controversial point. But it was certainly possible to reconcile L'Engle's themes with Christianity, which it isn't quite easy to do in this movie. "Love yourself, have faith in yourself" is not a Christian theme. And in both the novel and the 2003 production, Mrs Who (who spoke only in quotations) quoted the Bible as often as she quoted anything else. In this movie, it's notable to anyone familiar with the original story that they very clearly removed all Biblical references. She quoted Buddha, but not Jesus.
There is this other point I have always had a problem with in every production Oprah Winfrey controls: She always, always, always portrays men as either villainous or feckless. She never allows the portrayal of an admirable man, and this movie is no exception. No man in this movie has any strength. They're all wimps or quirks or jerks or villains, and they're all useless. That's not gender balancing, that's pandering.
Don't read this if you're going to see the movie. But better yet, read this and don't see the movie. Read the book--you can get it on Amazon. There's also a graphic novel version on Amazon. Or watch the 2003 version on Amazon.
I have been a fan of the book for over 50 years--I first read it in 1967. I can see why people would say it was visually unfilmable--from one viewpoint. The "problem" is that L'Engle describes scenes in terms of how they make the characters feel rather than how they look. So every reader will have a different mental image of each scene, and whatever concrete images the film makers devise will unavoidably not match that of any reader.
And I was okay with that. My only concern was that a movie try to retain the themes of the author. I can live with a visually different movie, and I understand the twists of getting a novel to film. For instance, the move Bladerunner was tremendously different from Phillip K Dick's original "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," but Bladerunner was a story that Dick might have told--it retained the essential theme of one of his stories.
I'd also seen the earlier Disney production from 2003, and watched it again just last night (rented on Amazon). That production stuck quite close to the novel. It was hampered by television-level special effects and a much slower pace. Critics hated it, but it told the story correctly.
This movie made my wife and me unhappy. They could have made it better; they had the technology.
The only good acting came from Chris Pine, and he wasn't in it much. The rest of the acting reeked, and since the main characters are children, I'm blaming it on the director. Maybe it takes a special kind of directorial talent to get good performances out of immature actors--I suspect it does. They probably can't figure out the inner motivations as well on their own as experienced actors. But the kids in this were terrible--and much worse than the kids in the 2003 production, which got the characters right.
In the novel and 2003 production, Meg is not just awkward and put upon, she's also downright angry at the world and at herself to a much greater extent (she doesn't just throw a ball at another girl, she punches out a couple of boys)--she's angry at a world that has done her wrong--but her love for her little brother is complete, tender, and protective. Storm Reid might have that in her, but it wasn't showing. They may have intended her to seem "angry," but she comes out more as pitiful and victimized one moment and awkwardly angry the next.
In the novel and the 2003 production, the child Charles Wallace is a telepathic prodigy, but his talent also completely alienates him from society. He didn't speak until he was four years old (because he was reading minds), and he never spoke to anyone outside the immediate family. In today's parlance, he would be judged autistic. That's what made it an important story point when he spoke to Mrs Whatsit and to Calvin O'Keefe--it was the signal they must have also been special people, and the reason Meg was willing to accept them herself.
It was also the reason the Charles Wallace character was in the story at all--right from the start, it was made clear in the novel and the 2003 production that he was an important key to what was going to happen later. In the 2003 movie, he was eerie but still essentially childlike and basically likeable...not just a chirpy, annoying brat.
In the novel and 2003 story, the older boy Calvin O'Keefe plays the role of the staunch sidekick. He's got her back. He's the Samwise to her Frodo. In this movie, he is so clearly deliberately nothing but the "pretty but dim-witted damsel in distress" that it stinks. He's only there to look pretty and compliment (not complement) Meg's beauty and brilliance.
Afre Woodard portrayed Mrs Whatsit in the 2003 movie, and she nailed the wackiness of the character. Reese Witherspoon was just flat in comparison. Kate Nelligan played Mrs Whatsit in 2003 with much more whimsy, tenderness, and sense of real caring than Mindy Kaling ground out. Alison Elliott played Mrs Who in 2003, and although I thought hers was the weakest performance, she still did better than Oprah Winfrey's overly lecturing ponderousness. And, boy, was she ponderous; she probably thought she was being imperious, but she was just ponderous.
The kids' father is mostly missing (he's the McGuffin in the story), but in the novel and the 2003 production, he's a scientist who accidentally discovered a hole in space and fell into it, winding up immediately in more trouble than he could handle--but without moral fault of his own. In this production, he turns out to be a wayward father and husband who more deliberately ran off from his family on an adventure, dallied around until he finally got into trouble, and in the end has to beg their forgiveness for being so selfish. Yuk. They didn't have to do that.
The book and the 2003 movie are thorough in laying out the threat and the stakes of the story from very close in the beginning. They make it clearly ominous: Some really bad JuJu has taken the kid's father, threatens the universe, and is already surrounding the earth. They kinda say it in this movie, but the 2003 movie does a much better job of presenting the threat--including the fact that the three witches have already essentially sacrificed themselves to fight it (they were all once stars who gave up their light in battles to hold back the darkness). The book and the 2003 movie make it clear from the beginning that the kids are in preparation for deadly combat, and the stakes are life and death.
That's where the 2003 production ratchets up the drama in its third act and this movie falls most flat. While hampered in special effects, the 2003 movie presents a much more threatening Camazotz and a much more frightening and effective red-eyed man. In the novel and the 2003 production, Camazotz is effectively represented as a society that has given in to the darkness of IT, an entire civilization surrendered to evil. The 2003 movie gets that across even with cheap sets, effects, and wooden acting. This movie seems to miss that entire point. It's a "bad place" only because Oprah said it was a bad place, not because it actually looks or feels like a bad place.
In the novel and the 2003 production, the sequence of the red-eyed man seducing Charles Wallace, winning him, and then Meg's fight to win him back is far, far more sinister and harrowing. It's far more of a mental and emotional fight--not stuff flashing around and blowing up, but the steely face-to-face battle of her love against superior intellect ("If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing").
And that was another thing. In the novel and the 2003 production, Meg's love of Charles Wallace overcomes the power of the monstrous IT. In this movie, Meg wins by convincing Charles Wallace that he loves her--a total turnaround. My wife and I looked at each other and said, "Wut?" This movie makes everything about Meg.
The whole movie was clearly just a vehicle for Oprah to make pronouncements about girl-power--but it was all the great wise women telling her over and over that she had power instead of the movie showing a girl discovering her own power and talents. And telling instead of showing is bad movie making.
There is a lot of excuse-making for this movie that basically says, "Well, it's just a kid's movie!" as though we're wrong to expect much from it. Sorry, but no. The novel is a kid's story that has been wildly successful as such for 50 years. When you're starting with a successful story--stick to it. Screwing with it is not going to make it better.
And kids deserve better. They took an exciting girl's novel--already proven perfect for children--dumbed it down, then injected their own messages that were as annoyingly obvious as bugs on a plate. And, sorry, but they aren't the same caliber of writer as Madeleine L'Engle. You don't dumb down a story for kids. Pixar knows that for sure. Disney used to know it. You give kids intense drama, high stakes, real crises, just as you do for adults...and you don't give them lectures.
Smaller niggles: Instead of referring directly to IT as the novel did ("Beware of IT. IT is a danger to the entire universe"), they referred to IT as "the IT," as in "Beware of the IT. The IT is a danger to the entire universe." It sounded dumb, like "I've been on the Twitter." Another annoying meaningless change just to make a change in something that was already good.
And it had been noted that L'Engle's story had some strong Christian overtones. I don't think so, really--that's always been a controversial point. But it was certainly possible to reconcile L'Engle's themes with Christianity, which it isn't quite easy to do in this movie. "Love yourself, have faith in yourself" is not a Christian theme. And in both the novel and the 2003 production, Mrs Who (who spoke only in quotations) quoted the Bible as often as she quoted anything else. In this movie, it's notable to anyone familiar with the original story that they very clearly removed all Biblical references. She quoted Buddha, but not Jesus.
There is this other point I have always had a problem with in every production Oprah Winfrey controls: She always, always, always portrays men as either villainous or feckless. She never allows the portrayal of an admirable man, and this movie is no exception. No man in this movie has any strength. They're all wimps or quirks or jerks or villains, and they're all useless. That's not gender balancing, that's pandering.
