A Wrinkle in Time

Ava DuVernay's adaption of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time is such a frustrating work that it's difficult for me to pinpoint where to place my disappointment. I guess I'm perplexed more than sad. Two young siblings (Storm Reid and Deric McCabe) and a friend (Levi Miller) set off in the company of three fantastically costumed cosmic creatures (Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling) to search for the sibs' scientist father (Chris Pine) who is lost in another time and dimension. The script feels uneven and quite often uncertain of itself. The derision the sibs suffer at school because of their father's disappearance feels grotesque and unreal but is explained, to some degree and not entirely convincingly, later. Actually, some important exposition about the discovery at the center of the story has been omitted from the final print, even though, oddly, it was included in an early trailer. The animated elements are top-notch Disney but don't contribute substantially to story development. A pretty spectacular flying sequence runs two hairs too long and is followed by comparatively lesser visual effects that don't quite add up to a thrill ride. The final showdown with the evil force IT is a showcase for the often engaging Miss Reid and the precocious though overtaxed Master McCabe. And, still, the three child actors heading this fairly contained adventure aren't well-served by the story. The dreamy young Master Miller is reduced to prepubescent eye-candy, and the early banter between Reid and McCabe is too often garbled when it's not cloying. Ms. DuVernay's decidedly multicultural casting and storytelling is trading in some interesting racial politics. The casual viewer might not question the choice of perennial heartthrob Pine to play the missing father and British beauty Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the perplexed mother / wife but others might wonder why the film, which was boldly promoting the universality of humankind, would show such timidity in casting these roles so conventionally. I wonder what the response would have been had they cast Sterling K. Brown as the father, for example. Children, especially younger girls, will no doubt enjoy the film's power girl message but the picture itself is not one for the time capsule. Pity.