The movie “The Time Traveler’s Wife” depicts the lives of Henry DeTamble, played by Eric Bana, and Clare Abshire, played by Rachel McAdams. Henry witnesses the death of his mother at the age of six and also discovers that he is able to time travel. During one of his time travels, he meets Clare Abshire who is 18 years old at the time. Clare explains to Henry that he met her at the age of six and he was 40. Clare continues to tell Henry about the visits he made when she was younger and the things that he told her.
Even with the inevitable time travels that Henry must go on, both he and Clare venture into marriage. Clare quickly realizes how Henry’s time traveling becomes a detriment to their marriage and family life in general. It is explained later in the movie that Henry’s time traveling is due to a rare genetic disorder. His time traveling is also triggered by stress or pressure. Since Henry’s time traveling is genetic, it was inevitable that his offspring would also have the same disorder. Clare then suffers six miscarriages due to the baby time traveling.
With the pressure of not being able to have a stable family, Clare then approaches a geneticist, Dr. Kendrick, who helps Henry control his time travels through medication. The medication helps and allows Clare and Henry to have a daughter named Alba. She, like her father, also time travels. The movie shows that one of Henry’s time travels allows him to meet his future daughter even before she is born. Unfortunately, Alba bears the bad news of knowing when Henry will pass away. Alba informs Henry that he will die when she is five years old. Henry then dies due to an unfortunate hunting accident during one of his time travels. The movie shows that the accident was caused by Clare’s father. The movie ends with a scene of Henry time traveling to the same meadow where he used to visit Clare when she was younger. In this meadow he sees Alba as well.
The movie was definitely a tearjerker. It poses complex scenarios to the audience. However, the movie could have used more explanations as to why and when Henry traveled and why he would travel during those exact times and moments when he does show up. The dialogue was clean and uncomplicated, which is what I like in a movie. The complexity of the plot line itself provided interest to the audience to keep asking why and how, and kept the audience needing to know what’s next. Overall the movie was definitely more than mediocre but still not more than average. It is a very typical romantic drama with the little added sci-fi spice of time traveling.