Movie Primer: The Time Traveler's Wife

This is a short primer for the romantic film The Time Travelers Wife. This movie is having its wide release on July 14th 2009. The trailer for this film can be found at http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/thetimetravelerswife/

The Plot: It's a pretty simple story really. Boy meets girl, girl and boy fall in love, and the boy travels through time when he gets stressed out. Apparently the boy, who is a Chicago librarian, has a genetic disorder that causes him to leap through time for long periods of time but despite that he falls in love with an artist. The artist who has known the time traveling librarian since she was a child and has been in love with him since he first popped in and out of her life. Their love is real but can it survive the reality of the man's condition. Even though the plot device is science fiction the meat of the story is about how two people can maintain a relationship despite the distance that is sometimes between them.

Star Power: Eric Bana is playing the librarian with a whole lot less tattoos them the last time he was on the big screen in Star Trek. His wife who must struggle with his constant vanishings is played by the always-talented Rachel McAdams who was last in State of Play.

Behind the Screen: Brad Pitt produced this dramatic romance but the man behind the camera is German director Robert Schwentke. American audiences will not have seen much of Robert but he did direct Jodi Foster in Flightplan in 2005. The screenplay was adapted from Audrey Niffenegger's novel by Jeremy Leven who also adapted The Notebook (the romance that put Rachel McAdams on the map.)

What to expect: Some folks who just want a good old romance might be turned off by the time travel element of the story but rest assured this is not a science fiction film. It is at its core a romance who two good actors playing the lead. The struggles that the two leads are facing would be the same of any couple that has to spend large spans of time away from each other. Except for dramatic effect this couples' separation sometimes happens without warning and a few times with the use of cool special effects. If the time jumping doesn't get to confusing this will end up being a really decent movie about the endurance of love. Something that the girlfriend can take you to that is cool enough that you might end up enjoying it as well.

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