A Wrinkle in Time is a Well-Meaning Mess
Disney’s standalone live action films always seem to leave something to be desired. In the past decade, we’ve seen titles like Prince of Persia, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The Lone Ranger, Oz the Great and Powerful, John Carter, Tomorrowland, and more. At best, these films are remembered as weird, ambitious curiosities. At worst, they are critical and box office failures, mocked for years after release.
Just weeks after the uber-successful Black Panther, Disney is releasing A Wrinkle in Time, an adaptation of the 1962 Madeleine L’Engle novel directed by Ava DuVernay (Selma, 13th). DuVernay is the first woman of color to direct a live action film with a budget of over $100 million, which alone makes Wrinkle one for the history books. It’s a shame that the film, with so much talent behind and in front of the camera, never finds its footing and simply stumbles through its source material. It’s a remarkable attempt at filming an unfilmable novel, but it doesn’t add up to a full-fledged success.
Wrinkle is the story of a girl named Meg (Storm Reid, a radiant performer) and her precocious brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe, constantly toeing the line between cute and annoying). Their scientist father (Chris Pine), disappeared four years earlier after trying to prove the existence of a tesseract, which would allow him to travel across the universe instantaneously. Strangely enough, the trailers featured a scene where Meg explains this concept to her friend Calvin (Levi Miller, a non-entity), but it is not part of the final film. One gets the sense that several scenes were excised, leaving the film feeling like it’s missing a few emotional and plot-related beats.
One dark and stormy night, a bewigged Reese Witherspoon arrives, claiming to be an entity known as Mrs. Whatsit. She takes the children to meet her counterparts, Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) and Mrs. Which (Oprah). Kaling is extremely underserved, as her character speaks only in cheap quotes from famous people and barely gets to do anything else. Oprah is her regal self, imbuing the film with a sense of grandeur it desperately needs. The children are then whisked away on an epic quest to rescue Meg’s father from the darkness known as the IT.
What follows is not so much a narrative as it is a collection of CGI setpieces and vague challenges. We visit a verdant field of talking flowers, a crystal cave featuring Zach Galifianakis, and a nightmare planet that’s really a gigantic brain. The kids face dangers that never seem too dangerous, at least until the climax. Meg’s climactic battle with the IT is the best part of the film. DuVernay resists the usual blockbuster compulsion to turn everything into a huge war scene, instead focusing on Meg’s inner strength and stubbornness, just like the novel. It is in this scene where the director’s intentions are most clear, and I wish this emotional fortitude had been present in earlier scenes.
In the end, A Wrinkle in Time will be remembered as a groundbreaking film for female directors, but doubtfully heralded as a new classic. Ava DuVernay is building a career on shattering barriers, and I cannot wait to see what she accomplishes next. As I said in my Black Panther review, diverse representation on screen is incredibly important. I’m really happy for the girls who can finally see themselves in a big movie as Meg, and they deserve more opportunities to do so. They deserve better movies, too.
A Wrinkle in Time
2018
dir. Ava DuVernay
Now playing everywhere (though the Hassle recommends the Capitol or your local mom & pop cineplex)
