A Wrinkle in Time is a family friendly movie featuring an uncanny cast, where two children venture into the universe to find their dad, facing many personal and unworldly challenges along the way.
I’m always up for science fiction, it is probably my favourite type of movie next to romantic comedies, and A Wrinkle in Time combines both of these things in a fun and quirky way. Meg is a young teenager whose scientist father went missing four years ago. She struggles with her self confidence, and is deeply hurt by his mysterious disappearance. Her adopted little brother, Charles Wallace, is full of spirit, and loves her unconditionally.
Out of nowhere, Mrs. Whatsit appears in their home, played by Reese Witherspoon. Their mother and Meg are taken aback by the appearance, but Charles Wallace knows something they don’t. The siblings then go on to discover Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) in an old dilapidated home. Mrs. Who has evolved beyond language, and only speaks in quotes from literature and pop culture.
Then Mrs. Witch shows up, a larger than life Oprah Winfrey. The three extravagant women take the siblings, and their friend on an adventure across the universe to find the missing father.
In other worlds and planets, nothing is quite the same as Earth. Flowers that speak in colour, magical beasts roaming across planets of ice, and a seer who lives in a cave full of balancing objects, are only a few of the oddities they encounter. The adventure goes sideways, and the children end up in a world of pure evil. They have to learn to trust themselves and work together to find the dad.
A Wrinkle in Time is cute, and has its fair share of tear-jerking moments (Father’s Day was probably not the best day to watch this film, especially if you have a dad who isn’t with you). But overall, the film was hard to follow and left a lot of questions unanswered. It might be a fine and interesting movie for children to watch, but I like to have all of the answers by the end of the movie. There were too many stones left unturned.
The cast was completely magical, and the costumes and sets were breathtaking, but the movie lacked a solid storyline. Unfortunately, we were left to fill in too many blanks with our own guesses of how things happened and why.
The director did a great job putting the movie together based off of a book by the same title, and I know it can be difficult to cram a full novel’s worth of work into a two-hour motion picture. Maybe if I read the book I would understand more about what was going on, but watching this without any of the backstory was difficult.
The acting in the movie was on point, and featured a lot of great people. Michael Pena, for instance, played the perfect villain, and Zach Galifianakis played the mystical “happy medium.” The children acting were serious and believable. A lot of times with children actors, it seems prompted and forced, but these kids did an amazing job at naturally jumping right into the roles. It was probably a very fun movie to film, as it went to many different locations and had abstract sets to play with.
Sadly, even though there were so many things going for it, I have to give A Wrinkle in Time four out of 10 popcorns for leaving too many questions unanswered and the sometimes confusing plot.
