A WRINKLE IN TIME: You Get a Star, You Get a Star, Everybody Gets a Star

It's March, time for Post-Credit Coda's annual tradition of highlighting female directorial voices. The endless sea of dude directors can be disheartening, but diversity means seeking out the voices that you want to hear more of in the world. It's also a surefire way to keep one's perspective from stagnation.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Director: Ava DuVernay
Writers: Jennifer Lee, Jeff Stockwell
Cast: Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Levi Miller, Deric McCabe, Chris Pine, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Peña
Runtime: 109 mins.
2018

The primary reason A Wrinkle in Time is such a colossal disappointment is that the script makes the least interesting choices at every turn. Agency is stripped from characters and purpose is siphoned out of the universe until all that remains is a vague progression of spectacle loosely bound together by trite, non-specific plot proclamations. Any potentially interesting ideas present in the film are more alluded to and forgotten than actually used to good effect. The narrative offers us intriguing elements, then breezes right on past them. It's an exercise in intellectual and imaginative futility.

It's such a shame because the auspicious elements are there, just for a second, peeking their heads out long enough to indicate what could have been. The film anchors us in the perspective of Meg Murry (Storm Reid), a talented child who has fallen into a social and academic funk ever since her scientist father Mr. Murry (Chris Pine) disappeared five years ago. Little does she know that she is about to go on an interplanetary journey of self-discovery, as her genius younger brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) has made friendly contact with three space witches: beings of pure energy who wish to fight the forces of evil by helping Meg and Charles Wallace find their missing father, who has been held hostage in the far reaches of space.

So many of the film's issues can be traced directly to its flimsy script, which has no idea what to do with most of its characters. Meg fares better than any of the others, as she seems to be the only one the movie has any active interest in. Her personal journey, although hackneyed here and there, is followed through with some diligence.

Nobody else gets the same treatment. Charles Wallace is slapped with a cliche sheen of "precocious genius boy who knows too much for his own good," but every moment in which he could make a choice that affects the narrative is stolen from him by outside forces. It doesn't help that McCabe's portrayal smacks of the worst Young Sheldonian variety of vocabularified shrieking. This is a character whose mystery, quiet dignity, and insight require a tremendous subtlety of writing and performance, but instead he's just a brash narrative pawn meant to move things along to the next planet.

Then there's Calvin (Levi Miller), an admirer of Meg's from school who gets folded into their journey because he is "meant to" and because he is "a diplomat," neither of which ever comes into play. I was specifically keeping an eye out for moments in which it could be said that he used diplomacy, and I came up empty. There is a certain YA fiction sheen about this adaptation that I honestly don't mind for the material, but in Calvin we see the baggage of that genre: a pretty boy love interest who hangs around for no reason beyond watching the main character do things. My favorite take on this character is from critic Tim Brayton, who observes that Miller unpleasantly plays the character as "a miniature 30-year-old actuary."

The side characters, little more than glorified cameos, fare somewhat better if only because the actors are a delight to hang out with. Zach Galifianakis, Michael Peña, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, and Oprah* are all fun to watch even though they, too, are hardly given anything to do. The writing fails to move past the threshold of window dressing, giving one the impression of sentiment and technobabble washing over them like a radio quietly mumbling commercials.

*whom the movie treats absolutely beatifically, oh how the movie adores her, to the point of having its characters stroke her 50-foot face as they fly by

And yet, there is DuVernay.

Meg's mother (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) characterizes her romantic-scientific relationship with Mr. Murry as follows: She has always been focused on the small stuff--atoms, the microscopic, pieces and parts--while Mr. Murry focuses on the big stuff--the cosmos, the nature of reality, our place in the universe. DuVernay's approach to this material demonstrates her facility with both of these registers.

As for the small... I was struck most immediately by the way DuVernay's intimate filmmaking style highlights the slightest gestures between characters. One can see this in the scenes of young Meg playing at science with her long lost father, or the scenes of the interdimensional Misses making contact with the Murrys for the first time. The camera captures touches and glances with tremendous warmth, bursting with affection. This communicates the film's humanist message more than any of the lip service in the script.

As for the large... these tiny moments are made all the more impactful for being buffeted by the grandiose worlds on display. These spectacles can sometimes be frustrating, as it is on the first alien planet the team visits. It is big, bold, beautiful, and absolutely pointless, the site of unnecessary narrative wheel spinning. Yet DuVernay seems intent on wowing you by sheer force of will. This impulse works to far greater success later in the movie, where DuVernay stages important moments in visually stunning environments. My favorite of these is (slight spoilers here...) the abstract hallway in which Mr. Murry is being held captive. Meg's reunion with her father gave me chills not for the dialogue or performances, but for the incredible color scheme and otherworldly vibe of their environment. This scene is part of a twenty minute climactic sequence of astonishing imagery and vigorously engaging filmmaking that makes the entire experience worthwhile.

Yet that is not the film's only merit. The impressive thing about my experience with A Wrinkle in Time is that, even though it is an unfocused meandering mess that makes good on none of its central conceits, I was more often than not made to feel the way the film wanted me to feel. Which is to say that as flawed as it is, the movie has heart. I don't want to overpraise DuVernay, who is regularly defeated by the film's most awkward moments (thinking in particular of Reese Witherspoon's embarrassing transformation into a large salad bird). But there are enough innovative, sharp, and beautiful moments that even in isolation, they can have a real impact.

I think of Meg's final tesser, the film's term for traveling instantaneously from planet to planet via quantum entanglement. The movie may try its best to fumble the set-up and execution of moments like this, but even so, I was moved by Meg's self-acceptance as she floats through this metaphysical non-space. It is abstract, balletic emotional catharsis. Although I understand why many would be inclined to reject such sloppy schmaltz, I have come to appreciate films that take such unabashedly earnest turns. Sometimes an artist cannot salvage the material they are given, but nonetheless they can make certain moments shine through.

2 / 5  BLOBS