The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)

Even though time travel movies is considered a separate genre, it is quite easy to make further distinctions within it. They can be adventurefilms, comedies or mysteries, but there are several of them which focus on romance. My favorites about the subject are About Time and the Christopher Reeve film Somewhere in Time. The Time Traveler’s Wife was a title which I hadn´t seen yet, but had been wanting to for a very long time. Does this movie starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams manage to get a spot as one of my favorites?

Henry (Eric Bana) has a genetic issue which makes him travel back in time involuntarily. At times he ends up during the time his mother still was alive and he was still a little boy, but he also ends up in places he has never been. In one of those places he meets a little girl, named Clare (Rachel McAdams). The two meet each other regularly and when Clare is grown up she runs into Henry again. They immediately feel a strong connection and marry, but a relationship with someone who unexpectedly time travels adds some challenges to a relationship.

 If you can get past the fact that this movie is about a relationship of a grown man who visits a little girl, who he eventually marries once she is an adult, than this movie has a beautiful story to tell. Henry senses when he’s about to time travel, even though he can’t control it. It is never really explained why it happens, but it is something he has to learn to live with even if that sometimes means he is away from home for weeks because he was literally stuck in the past. The movie mainly centres about the pressure that puts on his marriage. McAdams is simply enchanting in her role as the woman who initially can’t get enough of Henry, but who slowly has to struggle with making difficult decisions. Even though this movie isn’t one of my favorites within the genre I did enjoy watching it. It’s not one I feel I need to revisit though.