"A Wrinkle in Time" (2018) Part 1

Be forewarned: I'm discussing the recent adaptation of  A Wrinkle in Time. If you've been following the blog for long, you know it's one of my favorite books and things could get messy. But here goes. This article does contain spoilers for both the book and the movie.

Overview
For those of you who don't know, A Wrinkle in Time follows the sci-fi adventures of Meg Murray, a young girl who is out to find her father who went missing in an inter-dimensional/space travel experiment. She's assisted by her younger brother, Charles Wallace, school friend/acquaintance Calvin, and three mysterious women: Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which. Their travels take them to various planets, where the children discover that there is a great evil in the universe which is even now trying to gain control of Earth. Meg and company must rescue her father from a planet that has given into this evil, while also not falling prey to it themselves.

Thoughts on the Movie--Plot
I promise that I really do have some good things to say about the movie. Firstly, the first two thirds of the movie did a good job of sticking to the book's plot and even the last third did a fairly good job of doing so. It was definitely recognizable as A Wrinkle in Time. 

They decided to add a couple small scenes that I felt changed the tune of things a little bit, but overall felt fine. Some were necessary for transporting the setting from the 1960's to the modern day and worked well. Why they decided to change when Mrs. Whatsit enters the story is beyond me, but it didn't hurt anything other than the general flow.

The last third of the movie saw some more significant changes in plot. They got rid of the Aunt Beast plot line, which I felt wasn't a bad choice as far as run time for the movie. Sure, I think there's a lot of thought that went into that bit, and it might not be as bad as Tom Bombadil in Fellowship of the Ring, but it's easy to remove without sacrificing terribly much of the story arc. I think leaving it out did harm Meg's character arc a little, but such is life.

Where the plot really made me unhappy was the plot on Camazotz. It went from being a planet that had been under control of The Black Thing to being The Black Thing/(The) IT itself. It went from this utterly creepy place in the book, filled with grays and a subtle mechanical-ness and off-ness to this gaudy, overwhelming, almost Alice-in-Wonderland place. It didn't feel evil. It utterly lost the chill it had of being a planet under The Black Thing's control--because part of the plot was that was what was about to happen to Earth. Rather, it became this abstract, trippy place that I wouldn't have been sure was evil if the Mrs. W's hadn't pointedly told us that. The use of the Man with the Red Eyes is the primary victim in the portrayal.

Sadly, the climax was a weak point in the movie. Rather than facing IT being pivotal for both Meg and Charles' development as people and the showdown being truly terrifying, I never felt that IT had much of a chance. Also, the voice they used for IT did not do much for me--the creepy, monster-esque voice had nothing on the calculating voice of Charles Wallace as portrayed in the book.


Thoughts--Characters

As far as characters go, they really did a good job with Meg. Overall, she's predictable as the same girl from the book, and I really felt that she was the same character, despite significant differences in appearances. There's always something lost in translation from page to screen, but they did a good job overall of staying true to her character, even if (as mentioned above), they might have done more with her story arc. For how well they did with Meg, I really wanted to like the movie more.

Unfortunately, Meg was the only character they really transferred well. Calvin wasn't terrible, but he felt...flat. You learn virtually nothing about him in the movie and there's not much to make you like him other than the fact that he befriends Meg. He has some tragic backstory about not being able to please his father, but we don't even get much about that. In the book, there's this really endearing scene where he calls home to make sure his mother knows he'll be missing dinner, even though he just gets yelled at by one of his many siblings. It makes you love him, and there's nothing similar in the movie.

Charles Wallace bugged me, though I'm still trying to figure out exactly why. He's explained to be a prodigy, but we don't see much of that. He also doesn't have much of a character arc. In the book, his character development centers around hubris. He doesn't even have much to be proud of, because we don't realize how smart he is.

Now we reach the point where I get onto my soapbox. The main downfall of this movie for me was the portrayal of the Mrs. W's. Mrs. Who transfers fairly well (though they have her quote weird things--give me more Shakespeare!), but then they have her talk without quotes so much that it loses its touch. Sadly, she's the best of the three ladies.

Mrs. Which as portrayed by Oprah does very little for me. In the book, she's mysterious, in the background, and generally elusive. In the movie, they seemed to want Oprah to take the lead. Fine, but they totally got her character wrong. Yes, it's biased, but I'm a book purist. I might have been okay with it if they had offered significant improvement over the novel, but they missed the mystery of her character to balance out the more outgoing two. (And omitted the wordplay of Mrs. Which appearing as a witch, one of many such omissions).

However, the most egregious violation of character was Mrs. Whatsit. Mrs. Whatsit goes from this comforting, warm, outrageous character to a snooty, snobbish, stuck-up prom-queen-esque disaster. (I know, I know, I'm overprotective of the book.) Really, I enjoyed a good portion of the movie, but I could enjoy very little where she was in it.

Join me next week for discussion on the themes and cinematic elements of the movie, as well as for NaNo kickoff!

Did you see the movie/read the book? What did you think? Am I overreacting?