By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Ava DuVernay
Cast: Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Levi Miller, Deric McCabe, Chris Pine, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Zach Galifianakis, André Holland and Michael Peña.
Rating: Poor.
Academy Award Filmmaker Nominee Ava DuVernay, who`s most notable work are films like “Selma” and the Documentary “The 13th” brings “ A Wrinkle in Time”, her most ambitious project to this date but unfortunately didn´t bring good results.
Based on the book by Madeline L´Engle, the movie tells the story of Meg Murry (Storm Reid) a young girl who recently suffered the disappearance of her father and astrophysicist Dr. Alex Murry (Chris Pine).
One night she will be visited by three astral travelers whose names are: Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey), Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) and Mrs.Who (Mindy Calling), who tell Meg and his younger brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) that they know where their father is.
At the beginning Meg doesn´t believe anything but she will be convinced by his younger brother. Meg accepts in doing the rescue and she will be joined by her brother and fellow student Calvin O`Keefe (Levi Miller).
Now Meg is in a race against time to rescue her father of the forces of evil who have him captive before it´s too late.
I was having high hopes for “A Wrinkle in Time”, specially for the fact that it was directed by Ava DuVernay, who I think is a brilliant and talented filmmaker. Her films like “Selma” and “The 13th” are very good films in terms that she created in both films a very unique way for storytelling. At some point she had to have a failure and unfortunately this was the case.
The problem that I saw in “A Wrinkle in Time” was in the screenplay written by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell. For being a children´s film I felt that it was too slow and by moments I was very confused on what I was looking.
The film had very good moments specially in the second act, but the film did collapse at the first and part of the third act.
I did like the message of love and hate how was said but it wasn´t written properly. There is no doubt in my mind that both Lee and Stockwell had the best intentions in crafting a very good screenplay but that was not the case and it turned into a complete mess.
The performance by Storm Reid as Meg was good and convincing, but Derec McCabe who played Charles Wallace wasn´t. I feel really bad about saying this but the things that you see is what you judge and here was the case of a kid who overacted the whole film.
There were positive things about “A Wrinkle of Time” one of them was the visuals of the film and I believe that Ava DuVernay did a really good job in directing very stylist scenes and her crew. The part that I think DuVernay could have done much better is in directing her cast in delivering better performances.
I saw also influences in movies like “The NeverEnding Story” in this film, specially for the events that take place during the second act, were Reese Witherspoon`s character transforms in this creature that flies and other elements that are similar to the movie from 1984.
Again she is really good as a director and in “Selma” she directed an amazing cast which delivered memorable performances like David Oyelowo`s as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and many others in that film.
The message of the film like I mentioned it was good in a way that it´s an original thing of how love and hate can be portrayed and how we can be vulnerable as human beings on having those feelings but I felt that it could have gone in a better direction.
I hope I can see another Ava DuVernay film in the future since I really like her work and hopefully this can be a good learning experience for her.
“A Wrinkle in Time” is an impressive visual experience and there is no doubt about that but unfortunately in a narrative manner it´s a movie that failed and badly.
With that being said I cannot recommend this film and this is because of the screenplay. If more rewrites would have been involved a would have had a different reaction since it had the potential to be a remarkable movie.