Wrinkle in Time Reveiw

Wrinkle in Time Movie Review

For those who have no idea what the story is about, Meg Murry's father tessered off planet Earth four years ago. Then three ladies appear (Mrs. Whatsit, Who, and Which), charging Meg, along with her brother and a friend from school, the task of leaving Earth themselves to find the Murry's long lost father. Eventually, their travels lead them to the planet of evil itself, Camazotz, where they are tested beyond all they ever imagined.

In a society filled with the wrong ideas about self-worth, it is nice that this film does some things right. Meg starts out in the film as a girl constantly wishing to be other than she is. She is someone who feels ugly, misplaced, and completely alone. As far as she is concerned, she has too many faults and hardly any strengths at all.
As she travels outside the world, she slowly comes to realize that she was made with purpose. As Mrs. Which so eloquently says, "Do you realize how many events, choices, that had to occur since the birth of our universe, leading up to the making of you? Just exactly the way you are."
When Meg has a chance to be all she wanted originally, she turns it down, knowing her vision could never be as good as the person she was created to be.
The film also touches on family priorities. Meg's father apologizes to her by saying, "I wanted to shake hands with the universe, but I should have been holding yours."

Despite those beautiful things in the film, what starts as a theme about self-worth quickly turns into one about self worship. At one point Meg tries to demand her brother's love by saying that he should love her because she deserves to be loved. Not only that, but when the terrible evil of the story is destroyed, Meg is made out to be the sole hero, with no thought at all to her brother's love for her as well as her love for him. Love defeated the evil. Nothing else worked, yet Mrs. Whatsit even goes so far as to compliment Meg's faults themselves by saying, "Such beautiful faults."
Other problems abound in the film. The ladies are nothing like the wise beings of light in the book; they focus on the beauty of the 'inner star' instead of true light, the light of goodness unstained by evil. There is a moment where Mrs. Whatsit twirls out of all her clothes before transforming. (The camera only shows her bare shoulders, but the idea comes across.) The actual evil of Camazotz is altered to make it seem only peculiar, but not evil, at least not until the "all powerful" It appears on screen.

Some people could complain that the action/danger scenes added to the story (e.g. Meg's friend, Calvin, falling hundreds of feet while they try to catch him) only serve to waste time and weaken the story, but that is not a large issue at all, just a personal preference.

Storm Reid did a superb job acting her part, and a few of the other actors were very good as well. That said, there have been modern films based off really good books, and despite annoying changes to characters, added amounts of action/violence, etc.etc. etc. the films have kept deep themes that make them worthwhile overall. (Examples of those are The Eagle off the book The Eagle of the Ninth, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and The Hobbit trilogy.) Sadly, A Wrinkle in Time is not one of those.