When her debut novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife was published in 2003, Audrey Niffenegger achieved bestseller status overnight. A romance novel tinged with science fiction, it was first released by a small press before it gained wider popularity after being featured on The Today Show. Three years later, the book had sold more than two million copies in the UK and US alone and Niffenegger became an author to be reckoned with in the future. Readers of this book praised how it mixed some elements of science fiction with a romantic love story that ran all through.
The first version of The Time Traveler’s Wife appeared as a movie in 2009 when Plan B Entertainment and New Line Cinema bought the film rights. This version would become a commercial success despite being a tragic romance and gross more than $100 million globally. Critics did not like it but its box office success showed that there is something about it that resonated with people.
Thirteen years later, in 2022, The Time Traveler’s Wife returns. In July 2018, HBO acquired the rights for television adaptation while Steven Moffat (Doctor Who / Sherlock) was named as the writer for the show. Over three years later these actors were casted as leads for the show. Scottish actress Rose Leslie who has starred in Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones was chosen for Clare whereas Theo James played her husband Henry, having started his career as one of the main characters in Divergent – science fiction movie made for teenagers at first instance that went on to have sequels. Both leading actors have done many film adaptations from books so they sound like good choice to tackle The time traveler’s wife.
In terms of how it jumps around in time and place this makes sense because these are narratives about moving through time. For example: childhood Clare meets adult Henry in woods; Clare meets Henry again when she is grown up; small Henry meets big Henry, all in one episode. While this theoretically may work well for the plot line, its limitations start to show themselves as the story goes on and it delves more into the realm of exposition.
For instance, when Clare first meets an adult Henry he’s twenty-eight and has a girlfriend. They go out on a date and they sleep together with her telling him that he would be her husband but he appears less than thrilled about seeing his future wife in the flesh. He even calls her mad and says that she was just someone to have sex with after which she throws a shoe at him. It is from here that there is a strange four-way situation where Clare still wants to know what will happen to Henry who had originally fallen in love with while 28-year old Henry also falls for Clare.
The heart of the story is in Henry’s inability to stop disappearing and reappearing in different times, while Clare will always be present. There are not many things to stretch into six episodes for a mini series because the world can only bear so much pining, and cuts to him appearing at different times are cumbersome by then.
In a nutshell, the book describes his transition through time as an inherited disease; however, the movie makes it such that more than one Harry can exist within same timeline. Enter: young Henry meeting old Henry. In original story from the book, Henry realizes his little trick after a car accident but in television adaptation he just lays as kid on bed. 28-year-old Henry then explains to him what is happening, but this is not the first time this occurs. Also occurring in this episode, 36-year-old H enry lectures 38-year-old about how he treats Clare later his wife.
The leads also lack chemistry making it even more painful for audiences to watch. Fans are used to that energetically character Rose Leslie had on Game of Thrones, but that power isn’t there in this show. However, James does redeem himself by being developed by his character; essentially, he sounds like a 28 year old version of himself who works at a library and dresses like a frat boy who never left school. Among these changes was transforming from a seemingly immature thirty-six year-old into someone that would calm down Claire when she encountered her former husband at age twenty-eight.
Other aspects of the series seem questionable in its scope: Clare meeting a naked man as a child, running off to get her clothes and telling her mother about said naked man in the woods seems off base. The two then getting into conversation about his future wife is non-subtle reminder what this series is about. However having conversations like this over and over again becomes tiresome even with first episode hence once you see them happening, they too are repeated.
By hammering in the fact that Henry is a time traveler methodically, it leaves no sense of imagination for where exactly the plot could go. The stakes are very low to begin with and this does not give room for the plot to breathe outside of the show’s romance. The conflict arises from the fact that Clare and her husband are distant because he travels through time therefore, at beginning of their story tries to sell us on magic of their love affair. However, it sounds a little forced since adult Claire wants to date Henry simply because she has seen him again and again throughout her life. She also knows they will be married later on.
Clare’s confidence in their relationship is a bit shameless, playing into the trope of the star-crossed lovers first established in Shakespearean tragedy. However, we’re now in 2022 and it feels kind of old-fashioned when you consider that the series starts with a six-year-old girl meeting a man who will one day become her husband—later it is noted on captions that he is 36. It all makes sense technically speaking but this comes off as more grooming than anything else.
When it opens the series, it sets the tone immediately and puts a bad taste in the mouth that lingers. Also Clare herself is just a passive observer and has no real agency to make choices beyond those she has already been told are normal for her. That’s also rather retrograde and patriarchal for a female character in 2022 too. She never makes decisions on her own but simply lives within the way things are supposed to be done for her.
Little comical breaks about time here and there give viewers chances to remember that – oh yeah – he does cross through time every single time. “Time means nothing to me,” snaps Henry’s co-worker at him when he demands answers about why his clothes are always everywhere. “You lucky bastard,” Henry says before rushing off once again on another escapade. It takes place at college where future wife Claire meets him for the very first time while still using her name from Time Traveler’s Wife Little comments like these help draw out parts of scenes that seem slow but they also remind readers what? He’s like some sort of shape-shifting monster right?
Can The Time Traveler’s Wife still provide an interesting story today? Yes, certainly so. Moreover, there is no doubt whatsoever as regards its undeniable compelling nature even today excluding how predatory child storyline may appear or how people can’t help feasting on those romantic aspects accompanying every time traveler coming back to his wife over and over again. The biggest problem with this adaptation of The Time Traveler’s Wife is that it must overcome the previous version’s reputation. It fails to fill in the gaps left behind by HBO, which makes the story feel dragging and aimless at times. Maybe The Time Traveler’s Wife is one of those things from the early 2000s that needs to be brought up to speed considerably so as to appeal more readily to modern audiences. Otherwise, it might seem problematic.
However, there are threads left unanswered: what about the body parts that are randomly shown in a shot left behind while time-traveling? Maybe the series will eventually explain what happened there, or it is saving itself for a potential season two. Will audiences be willing to stick around for another season? We cannot predict the future or be there, but only time will tell.
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