Movie Review: A Wrinkle in Time

Full Disclosure: This was a paid promotion for A Wrinkle in Time on behalf of Walt Disney Studios.  I received free promotional items in exchange for a review.  I was not told what to say in this review and all opinions expressed are my own.

Normally I write book to movie comparisons when a movie was adapted from a book.  I’m not doing that this time, even though I have read A Wrinkle in Time, because I read it a long time ago as a kid.  And man I thought it was weird.  We had great class discussions about it, I’m sure, but I couldn’t kick the feeling that all of it was just going over my head.  Then we meet the IT which is a brain and it totally lost me.  I’m pretty sure I took the brain thing way too literally.  I couldn’t imagine it (IT?) and I couldn’t get over how bizarre that was.

Then this movie came out.  And I connected with the story this time.  Maybe it’s because I’m older.  Maybe the movie is so changed from the book that it didn’t go over my head this time.  Maybe Chris Pine. Whatever the reason, I loved this movie.  And the movie convinced me to give the book a second chance.

There are so many great themes in this movie. I loved the idea of time travel with love. I related to Meg’s journey of not wanting to be herself and therefore being at odds with the universe.  I felt that a lot at her age.  It also reminded me that we can’t connect with others when we don’t connect with ourselves.  IT is the darkness within. Hope fights darkness in all of us.

I love this quote from Oprah–I mean Mrs. Which.  I never saw her as Mrs. Which throughout the whole movie.  I just can’t unsee her as Oprah.  But her mentoring and loving personality is so similar to Mrs. Which that it oddly still worked and now I’m thinking Mrs. Which is living on earth and goes by “Oprah.” Kidding. Kind of.  This is still beautiful advice from Oprah/Mrs. Which:

“Do you realize how many events and choices that had to occur since the birth of the universe leading to the making of you just exactly the way you are?”

-A Wrinkle in Time

I have two vague memories of reading A Wrinkle in Time as a kid.  One is the evil IT brain thingy.  The second is the scene in the “normal” neighborhood where everything is exactly the same and exactly perfect.  I could be wrong (it has been a long time since I’ve read it) but I swear that scene in the movie with the bouncing balls came straight out of my head from the way I imagined it while reading it.  It was like deja vu even though I was watching it for the first time.  Even as a kid I knew that scene was unsettling for some reason but I couldn’t figure out why.

I liked that the IT manifested itself as the person Meg thought she wanted to be so it wasn’t so abstract.  Not only does that person not exist, but if you are always striving to be different you’ll never get there.  We use it as an excuse to not love ourselves now.  We’ll go through the effort of loving ourselves when we’re prettier or whatever.  And that is the lie.  Loving yourself when you are “perfect” is just as hard as  loving yourself now.  I almost think it must be harder to love yourself if you are perfect.  Like Mrs. Whatsit said – your faults are a gift.  Accepting them is the key to loving yourself.

Trailer for A Wrinkle in Time

You can see more of my photos on Instagram :)  The flowers with the mug reminded me of the cute gossipy flowers from the movie.