Read the Book! See the Movie (or not)!

 So last night I was lucky enough to catch “The Time Traveler’s Wife” on HBO…okay, I think I actually own the DVD but it’s still in the wrapping like so many of my DVDs.  This film- and the book on which it’s based- fall under the umbrella of my second-favorite genre: improbable romances (my first-favorite is religious horror. I am a girl of diverse tastes; what can I say?). What I mean by this self-created subcategory is romances that contain an element of magic, a little extra “unicorns and fairy dust” (thank you Ben Nadel for this definition) if you will. Alice Hoffman, my favorite author, always infuses her books with a perfect balance of love and the practical supernatural.  Her characters have some sort of romantic misfortune but always overcome it with the aid of their own determination and mystical powers. It is the ultimate expression of “love conquers all.”

Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife also embraces this ideal. The main characters, Clare and Henry, are destined to be together but Henry’s affliction – he has a genetic disorder which causes him to travel through time with no warning or control- separates them both physically and emotionally on a regular basis. It’s hard to talk about the book chronologically since it skips around through the course of their lives (much like Henry himself does), but they more or less meet for the first time when adult Henry shows up in the field behind child Clare’s house. Of course, at this point he is aware that they will fall in love and be married, but Clare is but an innocent accomplice to his erratic life’s journey.

The film actually addresses this issue far better (one of the very few things it does do better) when adult Clare calls her now-husband to task for knowingly shaping the course of her life and removing all free will.  But a little deeper consideration- and Clare’s own heartfelt recanting on Henry’s deathbed- brings this into question: since we don’t actually have a clear picture of when time begins and ends for Henry and Clare, are they both just pawns in the Universe’s perverse chess game? This is never actually answered and, in fact, it really becomes much less of an important issue when weighed against the core of this tale: there is no question that Clare and Henry love each other, no matter when it began and what the reason.  This is, after all, a love story, and that is what really matters.

As my cousin Nancy pointed out, with a few exceptions no movie ever really does justice to the book on which it is based, and the film version of “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is not one of those. However, there are several things at which it excels. I can’t imagine how difficult it was to condense into 90 minutes a 500-plus page book which spans 85 years, and the writer and director did a pretty good job of adapting the pivotal moments from the book which allow us to see why Henry and Clare love each other, how difficult is their struggle, and why we should care about what happens to them (something I often find lacking in modern romances). But the real hero of the film is the Director of Photography, Florian Ballhaus. His cinematography is absolutely, stunningly beautiful and, more so than any other aspect of the celluloid adaptation, brings to life Niffenegger’s gorgeously tragic world. There is one scene in particular where we see the course of Clare and Henry’s life as their daughter, Abra, grows up; the camera moves from room to room in their dream house and follows the main characters around while they age the five years we know will pass before Henry dies. It is an amazing visual representation of something of which all of us, particularly those of us watching our own aging mirrored in the maturation of our offspring, are painfully aware: time passes far too quickly when life is good.

And this is exactly how I felt when the book ended, but I cannot say the same for the movie which left me exclaiming, “Really?!? *That* is the best you could do?!”  The book has a wonderful, all-loose-ends neatly, peacefully bowed completion. Clare, having lived for nearly five decades after Henry’s death, is rewarded for her life of patience and belief: Henry comes for her (though he has been reappearing to Abra throughout these years), and it is implied that both of their journeys are now at a mutual, joyous end. But in the movie, after Henry’s death, Henry and Clare are reunited in the field where so many of their early meetings took place. In a horribly clichéd moment, after Henry inevitably fades into time, Abra and Clare fold up his clothes (in what is a neat concession to reality, Henry always arrives in time naked) and stroll off into the fading sun discussing how Henry will always be there with them. Ugh, ugh, ugh. I am at a complete loss as to why they couldn’t have filmed the book’s vastly superior ending; if any of you have both read the book and seen the movie, maybe you have an answer?

I want to leave you with some recommendations and a request for same. Here are my favorite improbable romances in both book and movie form. If you can think of any that I might have missed and should read/see, lay it on me! Oh, and by the way, I came up with my rating system:

The novel The Time Traveler’s Wife makes my cup runneth over; the movie of the same name leaves my glass half empty.

Book recommendations: Anything by Alice Hoffman, but Practical Magic and Here on Earth in particular; anything by Richard Matheson; Like Water for Chocolate (even better than the movie, believe it or not!)…

Movie recommendations: “What Dreams May Come,” “Chances Are,” “Made in Heaven,” “City of Angels,” “Starman,” “13 Going on 30,” and “Kate and Leopold.” There are many, many more but these are the ones that came to mind first.