A Wrinkle in Time

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Directed by: Ava DuVernary
Written by: Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell - Based on the novel by Madeleine L'Engle
Starring: Storm Reid, Levi Miller, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris Pine, Deric McCabe, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Peña, André Holland, Rowan Blanchard, Bellamy Young
Adventure/Family/Fantasy - 115 min          Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 7 Mar 2018
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Everybody needs to calm down about A Wrinkle in Time.  It’s an event film, it’s Disney, it’s adapted from a beloved kid’s novel, and its director broke a barrier to make it.  The rest of the associated baggage including the box office take, critic scores, and allegations of folks walking on eggshells around the movie because of diversity and social issues or attacking it over these same issues are not omens determining the future of either the studio, the director, or race relations.  It’s just a movie.  But it stars Oprah Winfrey!  She pops up in plenty of movies.  Calm down and look at the film for what it is, a great big ambitious swing of the bat resulting in a foul ball.  A Wrinkle in Time is too visually grand to strike out, but its clunker of a story and dull pacing fails to get it on base.

Director Ava DuVernay will forever have the adjective ‘visionary’ attached to her name after this.  Visionary director Ava DuVernary blah blah blah.  Tackling A Wrinkle in Time is a different vector from her past work, Selma and the documentary 13th - both Oscar nominated.  A Wrinkle in Time is a kid’s story; DuVernay even talks to the audience before the film's start urging us to watch it as our 11 or 12 year-old selves.  Fair enough - I honestly don’t know if I would have been just as bored back then, but the visual effects would have knocked my socks off. ​
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I’ve never read Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 classic, but I can tell DuVernay put her unique interpretation on it.  Working off a script by Disney veteran Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell, DuVernay made the central Murry family bi-racial.  Mom (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Beauty and the Beast) and dad (Chris Pine, Wonder Woman) are leading-edge astrophysicists who believe the correct frequency can bend space-time cutting the journey between vast distances in the galaxy into a matter of seconds.  After dad goes missing, daughter Meg Murry (Storm Reid, 12 Years A Slave) goes into a four-year long funk, endures bullying at school, but dotes on Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), her adopted little brother.
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I love the mixed race characters.  The Murry family, along with the three Mrs., were all caucasian in the book.  Imagine millions of young girls looking up at an IMAX screen seeing a reflection of themselves with celestial powers.  The film will also beat them over the head with its central self-worth message.  Finding dad is the skin-deep plot, but Mrs. Which (Winfrey) explains to Meg, “Do you realize how many billions of events had to happen for you to be who you are?”  Meg is filled with despair - she has minuscule self-esteem and would give anything to look and feel like somebody else.  The irony of A Wrinkle in Time is she cannot find dad without realizing she is already a person of worth and must find the warrior of light inside.
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DuVernay didn’t stop at skin color, she also updated the language.  Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling, The Night Before) only speaks in quotable riddles.  Instead of consistently quoting the old standbys like Shakespeare and the Buddha, which she does, she also quotes Atlanta’s most beloved rap duo, Outkast.  This is what a director can do with fantasy and adventure; you can cast however you want and write dialogue fitting the times.  The barrier DuVernay broke with this film is being the first African American woman given a budget over $100 million to make a film.  Forums like Twitter and various message blogs are full of brilliant minds arguing with each other over what it all means and what will happen next; hence my recommendation for calm and that it means nothing at all.
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DuVernay made something new but she also made a film with a sub-par script and put some kids on a ho-hum journey.  To reach the realization of love conquers all, Meg and friends must tap into who they are and overcome whatever darkness confronts them in life.  Kids today are surrounded by dark times and chaos and this version of A Wrinkle in Time addresses that.  It is a social commentary aimed directly at children around 8 - 12 years old.  It is a spectacle with thick layers of spirituality.  Reese Witherspoon (Home Again) as Mrs. Whatsit is sharp-tongued and flippant one moment and a gliding magic carpet of flora in the next - spectacle and spiritual.  Enjoy the wider breadth of races, culture, and faiths.  Admire the ambition, but prepare yourself for a great big glob of meh in the end. ​
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