Hors du temps

Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana star in "The Time Traveler's Wife," from 2009. Directed by Robert Schwentke and based on the novel by Audrey Niffenegger, it tells the story of Henry DeTamble.

Henry (Eric Bana) works as a special collections librarian. He has an anomaly he was born with which allows him to travel in time. He never knows when or where he's going.

When Clare Abshire meets him, she invites him to dinner -- she has been in love with him since she was six years old. He finds out that he visited her often when she was a child. They fall in love and marry.

It turns out that being married to a time traveler isn't all it's cracked up to be. Henry always leaves unexpectedly and sometimes is gone for a while, and it can happen at any time.

Good movie, with wonderful performances by both leads, who have good chemistry. Rachel McAdams to me is scarily like Jennifer Garner. She's lovely and sympathetic as Clare, and Bana, a fine actor, is very effective as Henry, whose visits to the future don't always make him comfortable.

Depending on your mood, this bittersweet story can be a real tear- jerker. It got to me and I cried, I admit it.

I think the tale says that we have to deal with what we're given, even if it's not always convenient. We are not always the masters of our abilities.

The Time Traveler's Wife is based off of one of the best books I've read in recent years. Naturally, the movie couldn't come close to catching all the little details that made the book so captivating, since like any other film it had a limited time frame he had to work with. However, the Hollywood adaptation (with Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams as the lead rolls) did do one thing right: it captured the heart of the novel and transferred much of the book's atmosphere to the big screen. Now, as much as I've always hated those original-material purists who nitpick on every little detail in a given adaptation, I have to say the work done on The Time Traveler's Wife was extraordinary loyal in spirit to the film.

Hollywood and director Robert Schwentke deserve a big kudos for not messing this one up, and for creating a big screen experience that welcomes those who loved the novel as well as newcomers to this tragic-romantic story.

I gave it 9 out of 10.

In Chicago, the special collections librarian Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana) has a genetic anomaly that allows him to travel in time; however, he is not able to control the moment or the destiny of his voyages. When the stranger Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams) meets him in the library, she invites him to have dinner with her in his favorite restaurant Beau Thai where she confesses that she has been in love with him since she was six years old. Henry leans that he had visited her many times in the real state of her parents and he falls in love with her. Sooner they get married, but the life of Clare becomes troubled with the successive unexpected travels of her beloved husband.

"The Time Traveler's Wife" is a delightful love story with an original romance of a time traveler that wins the heart of his wife when she was six years old and he was older. Therefore he does not know her in the present time. The chemistry between Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams is wonderful and makes their love absolutely believable. However, the girl Brooklynn Proulx steals the movie with a marvelous performance. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Te Amarei Para Sempre" ("I Will Love You Forever")

Something I often find bothersome in 'time travel fiction' is that there is usually a large chunk of the storytelling dedicated to the tedium of explaining 'how' time travel works, particularly when time travel is merely a device to aid the storytelling. We don't really need to know the science behind it because, simply put, science can neither logically explain its paradoxical nature, nor prove or dispute its possibility. "The Time Traveler's Wife" never makes pretenses to the science behind it, rather it centers its focus on the story.

At the heart of this film is a love story and the complexities that people bring to their relationships. What I liked most was its metaphorical allusion to the distance in relationships and how the important people in our lives stay with us even after they are gone. The scenes between Henry and young Clare were especially moving because they took literally the notion of feeling like you have known someone your whole life. It's kind of like when you share stories from your past with friends and significant others, retelling them time and again until your experiences are indistinguishable from theirs, except in the case of Henry and Clare, the experiences are real if not linear.

Just go and watch it. Decide for yourself if you like it. Just don't dwell too much on the technicalities. After all, Scientific Theorists have been slamming their heads against the wall on the matter of time travel for centuries. Take the story for what it is and enjoy the ride.

This was much better than expected. The premise seemed far-fetched, to put it mildly. But the movie worked on a number of different levels based on the screenplay, directing, beautiful cinematography, and acting, not just of the always captivating Rachel McAdams, but also the much underrated Eric Bana as the co-lead, and the rest of the supporting cast.

The basic plot is Eric Bana (Henry) is afflicted with being involuntarily sent through time. He has no control about the time or places where he is sent. At some point, he meets with Rachel McAdams (Clare), drops in and out of her life, they fall in love and marry. However, as one can easily imagine, the downsides of involuntary time travel takes its toll. The movie could have easily have spun out of control and ended up a total mess, but the movie actually works quite nicely.

The plot could be a collaborative effort of the late Rod Serling (of Twilight Zone fame) with bizarre, science fiction type plots and Nicholas Sparks, the author of countless sticky sweet love stories (i.e. – "The Notebook").

I liked this movie, but I realize this might not be everybody's cup of tea. I would say stick with it & you'll be glad you didn't give up & go see "Halloween II" across the hall (as I was tempted to do). I've seen them both. Believe me when I say "Time Traveler" is the better of the two.