A Wrinkle In Time – Movie Review

I didn’t read a lot of the classic children’s books when I was growing up, so I missed reading, “A Wrinkle In Time” by Madeleine L’Engle. But I’ve heard a lot of good things about the story and it is on my “to-read with the kids” list. All that to say I had no expectations going into the screening of this movie.

ABOUT
From visionary director Ava DuVernay comes Disney’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” an epic adventure based on Madeleine L’Engle’s timeless classic which takes audiences across dimensions of time and space, examining the nature of darkness versus light and, ultimately, the triumph of love. Through one girl’s transformative journey led by three celestial guides, we discover that strength comes from embracing one’s individuality and that the best way to triumph over fear is to travel by one’s own light.

MY THOUGHTS
This is a great movie for tweens. The reason I specifically say tweens is the imagery and story might be a little too advanced for young children but the dialogue is very “kidded” down. I really loved the story even though there were some plot holes in the movie. After talking to some friends that read the book I was able to fill in some of the parts that didn’t make sense to me. Without giving away any spoilers let me explain. The story is about a daughter that is trying to rescue her father, well in the end the father kind of comes off as a jerk, in my opinion. However, everyone that read the book says that is because they eliminated an important scene in the book.

The dialogue was very basic which made parts of it seem cheesy but I had to constantly remind myself that this is a story about a rather complex subject but written for children. I think my older boys would really like this film, especially if they have read the book first. It’s a fun movie and a great story, however there are some glaring flaws in the overall production of the film. In addition to plot holes and simple dialogue the cinematography was a little distracting. I’m assuming some of the bizarre direction choices were meant to be symbolic but they kind of became distracting for me. There are so many close up shots of people’s faces while they were talking. It almost seemed like the characters weren’t even on the same set as they were talking to each other. I wonder is some of the direction was meant to be symbolic because some times the characters were very far apart from each other while they were talking… maybe that meant something.

I really loved the child actors in this film; Storm Reid, Levi Miller and Deric McCabe. Their performances outshone the adult actors for sure.

All that to say, I think if you’ve read the book you will enjoy the movie. And if you haven’t read the book, read the book!

I received passes to the featured event in exchange for my honest opinion. All opinions are my own.