wrinkle in time movie reviews

A Wrinkle in Time

“A Wrinkle In Time,” about three children and three magical beings trying to locate a missing physicist and stop evil from overwhelming the universe, is as dislocated from the current moviegoing moment as its human heroes are from their lives back on earth. It’s a gentle fantasy, seemingly pitched at younger children, that would rather take people by the hand than punch them on the shoulder, and that’s a good thing; in fact, it’s the wellspring of the movie’s best qualities. There’s a lot here that feels insufficiently shaped or fitfully realized, but at the same time, there’s a lot to like. It’s the Platonic ideal of a mixed bag. The newness of the new parts counterbalances the ineffectiveness of the stuff that seemingly every fantasy blockbuster does, and that this one doesn’t do well. “A Wrinkle in Time” has zero interest in seeming cool, and in its final third, it ramps up the sentiment into a zone that most big-budget movies don’t dare enter in the era of irony and “grittiness.”

The story begins with Meg Murry ( Storm Reid ) and her six-year-old adopted brother Charles Wallace ( Deric McCabe ), and their scientist mother Kate ( Gugu Mbatha-Raw ) in a state of mourning over the disappearance of the family patriarch, Alex Murry ( Chris Pine ). The family was baffled by his sudden vanishing, but it turns out to be connected to his research (with Kate) into tesseracts, a phenomenon that allows for the folding of space and time. With help from three magical beings, the goofball Mrs. Whatsit ( Reese Witherspoon ), the regal Mrs. Which ( Oprah Winfrey ) and the wise Mrs. Who ( Mindy Kaling ), the kids leave their world to find Alex, bringing Meg’s crush object, Levi Miller’s Calvin O’Keefe, along with them. As they travel to a series of galactic locales to free Alex from the grip of dark forces, young Charles Wallace, a prodigy who at times evokes that little kid from “ Looper ” with the thundercloud eyes, undergoes a terrifying change.

The film’s tone is so radically earnest at certain points—particularly when it’s dealing with loss and disappointment—that the movie’s logo could be a gigantic ear of corn. In its multicultural casting, its child-centric story, and its emphasis on the validity of feelings, it’s so different from every other recent big-budget live-action fantasy (superhero films included) that its very existence amounts to a contrarian statement. Much of the emotional heavy lifting is done by the daughter-father team of Reid and Pine. Pine has stealthily become one of the most versatile leading men in American movies, and one of the few who can channel that old-fashioned, George-Bailey-having-a-breakdown-at-the-bar brand of emotionally vulnerable masculinity without seeming as if he’s just doing a bit. Like the rest of the core cast, he’s doing old-movie style, just-plant-your-feet-and-say-the-lines acting that seems to be pretending that the Method never happened. Reid in particular is quite good at this; some of the notes she strikes early on reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor in “National Velvet” in their near-theatricality, but in a scene with Pine near the end, the facade drops, and it’s devastating. You think about how strong this girl had to pretend to be, how impervious to pain, and how it was all for show: a survival mechanism.

The problem is that the minute the film earns our trust and guides us into the story, what it has to show us isn’t all that remarkable: mostly a lot of nondescript glittering/pulsing/stretching/bursting CGI, of the sort that you’d see in a substandard Marvel film (there’s even a creature that looks like a flying cabbage leaf). This is made impressive more by the characters’ reactions than to anything that’s onscreen. It also suffers from trying to do too much in its relatively slight 109-minute running time (the source novel Madeline L’Engle has been considered un-adaptable since its first publication in 1962, so it’s possible that even a miniseries might’ve had issues; the 2003 TV movie was a train wreck). And there are times when director Ava DuVernay (“ Selma “) and screenwriters Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell have trouble smoothly shifting between the film’s various modes, which run the gamut from doomed love story to coming-of-age romance to knockabout comedy to high-minded philosophical odyssey. I wish that DuVernay had given Pine and Mbatha-Raw more scenes. And I wish she’d asked more of Winfrey, who’s effortlessly regal but doesn’t do much here besides make pronouncements; Kaling, a charming presence who’s stuck in a part with dialogue consisting entirely of quotes by great poets and thinkers; and Witherspoon, who’s agreeably dotty but never ascends to that Glinda, Good Witch of the North plane she could easily reach were she so inclined. But this is more a matter of wishing the film had done more of what it was doing already than wishing it had done something else.

“A Wrinkle in Time” arrives in theaters during the same week that U.S. viewers observed the 50th anniversary of the premiere of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” a beloved series that was all about respecting the space, the wishes, and the feelings of others. There are many points in “A Wrinkle in Time” where the characters’ journeys suggest a big-budget CGI version of that show’s regular excursions into “The Neighborhood of Make-Believe,” a world in which kindhearted children and adults have poker-faced conversations about insecurity, loneliness, anger, and other mental states openly, amongst themselves and with sock puppets, then return to the “real” world and watch a musical performance or visit a harmonica factory.

In that spirit, Mrs. Whatsit just shows up in the family’s house, less like a real-life neighbor than a scatterbrained wood sprite from a Disney Channel cartoon, and the mom is the only character who seems shocked. Mrs. Which is a 40-foot tall shimmering apparition looming over a backyard during her first appearance, and the onlookers seem more intrigued than terrified by her, as if this kind of thing happens a lot. Meg asks her new maybe-beau Calvin to join her in her time-space journey, and he agrees as readily as if she’d asked him to join her on a walk to the local 7-Eleven. It’s the kind of movie where you decide to do something and just go do it, and where no questions are off limits because everyone’s so thoughtful. I bet Mister Rogers would have enjoyed it.

If you laughed derisively at that line, you shouldn’t see “A Wrinkle in Time.” If it made you smile, go.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor-at-Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

André Holland as Principal Jenkins
Reese Witherspoon as Mrs. Whatsit
Oprah Winfrey as Mrs. Which
Mindy Kaling as Mrs. Who
Storm Reid as Margaret "Meg" Murry
Zach Galifianakis as The Happy Medium
Michael Peña as The Man with Red Eyes
Chris Pine as Dr. Alexander "Alex" Murry
Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Dr. Katherine "Kate" Murry
Levi Miller as Calvin O'Keefe
Deric McCabe as Charles Wallace Murry
Ava DuVernay
Jeff Stockwell
Jennifer Lee

Writer (based upon the novel by)

Madeleine L’Engle
Ramin Djawadi
Spencer Averick

Cinematographer

Tobias A. Schliessler

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Review: ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ Gives a Child of the Universe Powerful Friends

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By A.O. Scott

March 7, 2018

What I remember most about “A Wrinkle in Time” is my second-grade teacher crying over the final pages during read-aloud time, along with nearly everyone else. I suspect some variant of this experience is common among readers who grew up any time since 1962, when Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved science-fiction coming-of-age novel was first published.

The movie adaptation, directed by Ava DuVernay from a screenplay by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell, has been a long time coming , and it arrives in theaters buoyed by and burdened with expectations. It is the first $100 million movie directed by an African-American woman, and the diversity of its cast is both a welcome innovation and the declaration of a new norm. This is how movies should look from now on, which is to say how they should have looked all along. Fans of the book and admirers of Ms. DuVernay’s work — I include myself in both groups — can breathe a sigh of relief, and some may also find that their breath has been taken away.

Mine was, once or twice, though I would describe the overall experience as satisfaction rather than awe. “A Wrinkle in Time,” faithful to the affirmative, democratic intelligence of the book, is also committed to serving its most loyal and susceptible audience. This is, unapologetically, a children’s movie, by turns gentle, thrilling and didactic, but missing the extra dimension of terror and wonder that would have transcended the genre. Thankfully, though, Ms. DuVernay has dispensed with the winking and cutesiness that are Hollywood’s preferred ways of pandering and condescending to grown-ups. The best way to appreciate what she has done is in the company of a curious and eager 10-year-old (as I was fortunate enough to do). Or, if you’re really lucky, to locate that innocent, skeptical, openhearted version of yourself.

Anatomy of a Scene | ‘A Wrinkle in Time’

The director ava duvernay narrates a sequence from her film featuring storm reid, reese witherspoon, oprah winfrey and mindy kaling..

Hi, I’m Ava DuVernay, the director of “A Wrinkle in Time.” [music] So at this point in “A Wrinkle in Time,” this is Meg’s first world. So she’s just hopped to her first planet. And one of the reasons why I really wanted to do this movie was just the very image of a girl of color traversing through the universe, having these adventures. In this moment Meg Murry — played by my great leading lady Storm Reid — she’s being asked to talk to flowers. Because everyone knows that flowers are the best gossipers in the universe. And one of the things about the design of this is I wanted it to feel like our characters were in a world that was somewhat real, but somewhat animated. So I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t hyper-real. We’re not trying to make everything look real. We like the fact that the flowers have a bit of a cartoon quality. I always wanted to step inside a cartoon. So this is basically Meg stepping inside of it. Here Mrs. Whatsit — played by Reese Witherspoon — turns into creature Whatsit. And this is a big change from the book. In the book, creature Whatsit is a centaur — half woman, half horse. What we wanted to do is update Madeleine L’Engle’s beautiful work in “A Wrinkle in Time” — the author — and create something that hadn’t been seen before. Because we’ve seen centaurs on screen. So we created this beautiful leaf-like creature who pulls from the environment. And creature Whatsit now looks like this. [music] And this quote by Mrs. Who — played by Mindy Kaling — Dang. And observed by Oprah Winfrey as Mrs. Which — is another update to Madeleine L’Engle’s work to create a new vision of “A Wrinkle in Time.” Oh. Woo-hoo.

The story comes with a heroine who makes such identification easy. Meg Murry is a smart, hurt and very real-seeming middle school student played with wonderful solemnity by Storm Reid. Meg’s father (Chris Pine), a brilliant and ambitious scientist, has disappeared, leaving behind Meg; her brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe); and their mother (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who is also a brilliant and ambitious scientist.

The parental partnership, an intellectual romance and a romance between intellectuals, is conveyed with graceful efficiency in the first part of the movie, which also sketches Meg’s predicament. As she grieves for her father and wonders where he went, she also contends with the usual early adolescent afflictions and anxieties. Her grades are slumping, her classmates tease her, and neither the principal (André Holland) nor her mother seem to understand what she is going through.

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User reviews

A Wrinkle in Time

After the disappearance of her scientist father, three peculiar beings send Meg, her brother, and her friend to space in order to find him. After the disappearance of her scientist father, three peculiar beings send Meg, her brother, and her friend to space in order to find him. After the disappearance of her scientist father, three peculiar beings send Meg, her brother, and her friend to space in order to find him.

Ava DuVernay
Jennifer Lee
Jeff Stockwell
Madeleine L'Engle
Oprah Winfrey
Reese Witherspoon
696 User reviews
282 Critic reviews
53 Metascore
5 wins & 17 nominations

Top cast 54

Mrs. Whatsit

Charles Wallace

Happy Medium

Principal Jenkins

Veronica Kiley

Camazotz Woman

Elegant Man

Mrs. Teacher

Mr. Teacher

Calvin's Father
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Trivia Over the entrance to Mrs. Who's (Mindy Kaling's) house is a street-number sign with the eight hanging lopsided, forming an infinity symbol.
Goofs In several scenes, Meg's glasses do not have any lenses in them.

Dr. Alex Murry : What if we are here for a reason. What if we are part of something truly divine.

Crazy credits The Walt Disney Pictures logo is affected by a tesseract.
Connections Featured in 75th Golden Globe Awards (2018)
Soundtracks Let Me Live Written by Denisia "Blu June" Andrews, Brittany "Chi" Coney, Ali Payami , and Kehlani (as Kehlani Parrish) Produced by Nova Wav and Ali Payami Performed by Kehlani Courtesy of Tsunami Mob/Atlantic Recording Corp.

User reviews 696

Nov 17, 2018
How long is A Wrinkle in Time? Powered by Alexa
March 9, 2018 (United States)
United States
Disney Plus
Official Site
Nếp Gấp Thời Gian
Wanaka, Otago, New Zealand
Walt Disney Pictures
Whitaker Entertainment I
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$100,000,000 (estimated)
$100,478,608
$33,123,609
Mar 11, 2018
$132,675,864

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 49 minutes

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A Wrinkle in Time reviews tesser between 'thrilling' and 'heartbreaking disappointment'

Reactions were mixed from the first few press screenings

A Wrinkle in Time has big names like Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon, direction by acclaimed filmmaker Ava DuVernay, and an empowering message for young girls — especially young girls of color. But not all critics were floored by Disney’s live-action adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s novel.

EW’s Darren Franich called the film “a sincere attempt at empowerment crushed into preachy dullness,” and there were many others from the first round of press screenings with similar sentiments. Variety called it “wildly uneven,” The Hollywood Reporter noted the film “doesn’t charm or disarm,” and Forbes deemed it a “heartbreaking disappointment.”

Others, meanwhile, were overcome by this “uniquely daring” and “disarmingly earnest” film and its “extravaganza of larger-than-life characters.”

Following Selma , the Netflix documentary 13th , and OWN’s Queen Sugar , DuVernay brings to life the story of Meg Murry (Storm Reid), a young girl who journeys (“tessers”) to other worlds in search of her missing father (Chris Pine). Accompanied by her friend Calvin (Levi Miller) and three galactic beings — Mrs. Whatsit (Witherspoon), Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling), and Mrs. Which (Winfrey) — Meg is encouraged to find the strength within herself and become a warrior.

Penned by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell, A Wrinkle in Time also features Michael Pena, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Zach Galifianakis, André Holland, David Oyelowo, and Bellamy Young.

“Keep your expectations in check, and you might be pleasantly surprised,” Variety ‘s Peter Debruge writes.

Read some of the mixed reviews below.

Darren Franich ( Entertainment Weekly ) “DuVernay captures L’Engle’s cosmic female vision, splendidly diversifies the cast of characters … and then sends all those characters to planets that all look like green-screen calamities, as colorful and infuriating as Apple’s rainbow wheel of death. You feel some hesitation in the storytelling here. The three Mrs. W’s overexplain every wonder with PowerPoint precision. Anything they don’t explain gets covered by Pine, trapped in a series of horrid flashbacks, including one where he delivers an actual PowerPoint lecture about the film’s psycho-spiritual cosmology.”

Peter Debruge ( Variety ) “Despite such bold choices as casting Oprah Winfrey as an all-wise celestial being and rejecting the antiquated assumption that the lead characters ought to be white, A Wrinkle in Time is wildly uneven, weirdly suspenseless, and tonally all over the place, relying on wall-to-wall music to supply the missing emotional connection and trowel over huge plot holes.”

Todd McCarthy ( The Hollywood Reporter ) “Only the faintest glimmers of genuine, earned emotion pierce through the layers of intense calculation that encumber Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time . Disney’s lavish adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s fantastical 1962 book (there were four sequels) about a girl’s journey through multiple dimensions to find her long-missing father may provide enough distractions to keep kids in the lowest double-digits age range interested. All the same, DuVernay’s first big-budget studio studio extravaganza after breaking through with Selma and the great documentary 13th feels cobbled together with many diverse parts rather that coalesced into an engaging whole. Even if this is widely consumed by the target audience, it doesn’t charm or disarm.”

Alonso Duralde ( The Wrap ) “DuVernay and screenwriters Jennifer Lee ( Frozen ) and John Stockwell ( Bridge to Terabithia ) give it their all, imbuing as much epic grandeur as they can into a story that seems to take place over the course of a languid afternoon. Audiences willing to forgive the script flaws in The Wizard of Oz — why doesn’t Glinda tell Dorothy right away that the slippers can take her home? — will be rewarded with an extravaganza of larger-than-life characters and mind-bending locations if they extend the same slack to A Wrinkle in Time .”

A.O. Scott ( The New York Times ) “Fans of the book and admirers of Ms. DuVernay’s work — I include myself in both groups — can breathe a sigh of relief, and some may also find that their breath has been taken away. Mine was, once or twice, though I would describe the overall experience as satisfaction rather than awe. A Wrinkle in Time , faithful to the affirmative, democratic intelligence of the book, is also committed to serving its most loyal and susceptible audience. This is, unapologetically, a children’s movie, by turns gentle, thrilling and didactic, but missing the extra dimension of terror and wonder that would have transcended the genre. Thankfully, though, Ms. DuVernay has dispensed with the winking and cutesiness that are Hollywood’s preferred ways of pandering and condescending to grown-ups.”

Justin Chang ( The Los Angeles Times ) “Whisked alongside the characters through one space-time wormhole after another, I found myself wishing that this Wrinkle were more focused, more disciplined — that its ceaseless flow of fantastical images cohered into a revelatory new application of L’Engle’s themes and insights, rather than an earnest, sometimes awkward reiteration of them. But if not all the film’s visual gambits and expository shortcuts pay off, they nonetheless turn out to be in service of a uniquely daring and adventurous sort of cinematic translation.”

Matt Singer ( ScreenCrush ) “One scene bleeds into the next with little flow or tension; the kids are told they can’t jump (or ‘tesser’) to a specific location and then they immediately do it anyway; characters go missing and then return without explanation. And the whole time Calvin, Charles Wallace, and Mrs. Which constantly pepper Meg with compliments, reminding her that she is talented and brilliant and beautiful. (Calvin fawns over Meg’s hair several times. Calvin, my dude, you’re making it weird.) They’re not wrong, and as a young woman of color, Reid’s Meg is a refreshingly unusual protagonist for a studio blockbuster. Still, the affirmations are so heavy and so persistent (‘Love is the frequency!’) that it sometimes feels like A Wrinkle in Time is adapted from a New Age self-help book instead of a classic science-fiction novel.”

Angie Han ( Mashable ) “ A Wrinkle in Time is for all the girls – and boys, and non-binary kids, and teens and adults and the elderly – who’ve ever been a Meg. It’s a flawed film that entreats us to love flawed things, up to and including our very own selves. Maybe that sounds like a hoary cliché now. It didn’t feel like one when I was watching the movie, which is so disarming[ly] earnest that I fell completely under its spell.”

April Wolfe ( LA Weekly ) “I’ll get this out of the way: I haven’t read Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved science fiction adventure novel A Wrinkle in Time , but I have seen Ava DuVernay’s heart-on-its-sleeve adaptation. No doubt there will be those who compare and contrast the book and the film, as L’Engle’s words have touched the childhoods of so many, but I’m going in fresh. And while I cannot fold time and return to my youth to experience what it would be like to find comfort in the fictions of a woman who deeply understood children’s fears and insecurities, I can say that as an adult, I was transported by DuVernay’s adaptation to the mindset of my girlhood — embarrassing insecurities and all. This is not a cynic’s film. It is, instead, unabashedly emotional.”

Kevin Fallon ( The Daily Beast ) “It’s the rare live-action family film to feel like a bonafide kids’ movie, with all the trappings of a screenplay catered to that demographic — albeit one that can at times feel on-the-nose, or more didactic than wondrous. It’s a film with lots of Disney-sparkled bells and whistles. It’s also a film that is so pure, to the extent it’s almost jarring to take in given all that’s going on in the world and how jaded we’ve allowed entertainment to become. But all of that is secondary to the film’s — and we’re wary of turning anyone off by even saying the word — importance.”

Scott Mendelson ( Forbes ) “While it is an unquestionable moral good, it is also, as a movie, a heartbreaking disappointment. A Wrinkle in Time is the very definition of a noble failure. It looks great and features a cast to die for, but it lurches from one awkwardly-staged episodic moment to the next, with little in the way of tension, urgency or defined stakes. Its splashy cast all seem to be acting in slightly different movies, with few of them (among the children and adults) hitting the right tone for the admittedly challenging source material. Even with strong imagery and its value beyond profits or IP extension, it barely holds together as a stand-alone 109-minute feature.”

A Wrinkle in Time will open in theaters on Friday.

A Wrinkle in Time Review

This flawed adaptation shines brightest when it reaches for the stars..

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A Wrinkle in Time Photos

Reese Witherspoon is Mrs. Whatsit and Storm Reid is Meg Murry in A Wrinkle in Time

While its narrative shortcomings often bring it crashing back down to earth, A Wrinkle in Time shines brightest when it reaches for the stars.

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'A Wrinkle In Time' Review: Ava DuVernay Delivers A Unique And Admirable Mess

Disney's A Wrinkle in Time represents a long-overdue milestone being passed. The fact that the film's director, Ava DuVernay of Selma and 13th , is the first woman of color to helm a Hollywood film with a budget over $100 million is remarkable; that it took the industry until 2018 to allow this barrier to be broken is unforgivable. But A Wrinkle in Time , leaving aside a marketing campaign that portends a new mega-bucks franchise, is a surprising, distinctive, sometimes mawkish, sometimes emotionally wrenching, and all-over-the-place journey. While the film is not always satisfying, its ambitions are winning enough.

Based on the Madeleine L'Engle novel, Wrinkle introduces us to awkward 12-year old Meg Murry ( Storm Reid ). Meg is an outcast at her school, belittled by a mean-girl bully and harangued by her principal for squandering her potential. Meg's troubles start at home, where she, her adopted brother Charles Wallace ( Deric McCabe ), and her scientist mother Kate ( Gugu Mbatha-Raw ) try to get by without her mysteriously missing father ( Chris Pine , the best of the Hollywood Chrises), a fellow scientist. One dark and stormy night, the Murrys are visited by an odd friend of Charles Wallace's, Mrs. Whatsit ( Reese Witherspoon ). The daffy-seeming woman soon invites him, Meg, and her schoolmate Calvin ( Levi Miller ) on a journey through time and space to find Meg's father, accompanied by two other beatifically odd women, Mrs. Who ( Mindy Kaling ) and Mrs. Which ( Oprah Winfrey ). The journey pushes Meg to the emotional brink, as she's forced to face the darkness within herself and the darkness stretching across the universe.

A Wrinkle in Time is both very grand and very internal in scope, with a climax that's literally cerebral. Though some of the L'Engle book translates easily to the big screen, much of the content has been reasonably branded unfilmable. DuVernay and screenwriters Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell have leaned into the challenge as opposed to shying away. Some elements of the book have either been redesigned or jettisoned entirely, largely for good reason. For example, Mrs. Which, in the book, doesn't manifest physically, but when Oprah Winfrey is cast in a big-budget movie, you are going to see Oprah Winfrey in the flesh. However, some of what makes A Wrinkle in Time so distinctive on the page doesn't make a logical or successful jump to the big screen; Mrs. Who, both in the book and the film, speaks largely by quoting different pieces of culture and literature. It doesn't really work on the page, and it absolutely falters on the big screen. (Kaling, ebullient and charming as usual, does her best, but cannot make even her final, groan-inducing reference work.)

But what does work in A Wrinkle in Time often works quite marvelously. Reid has appeared in a handful of other movies and TV shows, but she has been given a star-making role with Meg. The emotional core of the story rests with Meg, and Reid shoulders the burden quite capably. Meg is plagued by, among other things, self-doubt, which isn't always easy to play or compelling to watch; Reid doesn't falter in portraying Meg's crippling lack of self-worth, however. And her big emotional moment is surprisingly raw, a counterpoint to the fantastical elements that make up the foundation of the film.

The three big names here do their best with sometimes impossibly stilted material — Witherspoon, as the chatty Mrs. Whatsit, is the standout. However, they, along with Pine, Mbatha-Raw, and Zach Galifianakis (as the Happy Medium) all exist as support for the three main kid characters. Reid delivers the best performance, although both Miller and McCabe try their best with characters who have only been slightly fleshed out from how L'Engle wrote them. Still, once the three kids are set on a specific mission and the three Mrs. are off-screen for an extended period of time, the film is at its strongest.

What is perhaps most striking about A Wrinkle in Time are its technical elements. Not all of the effects work as intended— the famous scene where Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace are confronted with a suburban neighborhood where each house and its denizens all act in the same robotically conformist fashion has painfully noticeable green-screen, for example. But DuVernay, along with cinematographer Tobias Schliessler and editor Spencer Averick, aim for something unique in the framing and cutting of many sequences and shots. There's an off-kilter, claustrophobic and hemmed-in quality to Wrinkle ; where other big-budget films might open up, the shots and pacing here feel deliberately disjointed and off-center. Once Meg and the others travel to other planets to rescue her dad, it's almost cruel for the filmmakers to not give a bigger sense of scope via wide shots. But even if the gambit doesn't always work, its very existence here is impressive.

There are some scenes in A Wrinkle in Time that run the gamut of emotion, leaping from feeling transcendent to awkward to painful to fascinating in the span of a minute or two. The film is undeniably flawed and messy, but there is a strong, passionate sense of heartbreak at its core, and the underlying message of hope and love manages to be both corny and aspirational. For all of its heady ideas, A Wrinkle in Time succeeds emotionally. For all its flaws, it has a sterling lead performance, some unexpectedly resonant images, and an unerring sense of the woman behind the camera bringing this all to life. A Wrinkle in Time may be messy, but in a uniquely admirable way.

/Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

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Film review: A Wrinkle in Time

Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of the science fantasy novel has sublime casting – and unimaginative visuals, says Caryn James.

Ava DuVernay’s charming, spirited, Oprah-fied version of A Wrinkle in Time arrives as the victim of its own hype. From its sublime casting to its big-hearted message, there is much that is appealing in this fantasy about Meg Murry, a girl who travels through space and time to rescue her missing father, and finds her own confidence along the way. Yet the stumbles in creating the alternate worlds Meg visits make the film less spectacular than viewers might have hoped, and at times a bit flat. Without the weight of high expectations, Wrinkle would look like a perfectly good Disney movie bound to appeal to its target audience of 10-year-old girls, and not so much to anyone hoping for dazzling film-making.

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Those expectations were justified because there is a spark of brilliance in DuVernay’s reinvention of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 novel, already ahead of its time in portraying a scientifically-gifted girl. DuVernay’s Meg is bi-racial, a heroine for our times. Her father, a Nasa scientist whose time-travel discovery has left him lost in another world, is played by Chris Pine. Her mother, also a physicist, is Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The inclusive concept is brought to life by Storm Reid, an extraordinarily talented young actor who captures all of Meg’s self-doubts, stubbornness and love for her father.

DuVernay’s high-profile casting turns out to be inspired too. Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which are magical creatures made of light who take human form, with elaborate costumes and make-up, while playing fairy godmothers to Meg. Reese Witherspoon is the energetic Whatsit, at two billion years old the baby of the group, who blurts out her skepticism about Meg.

Mindy Kaling is Who, the one who speaks by quoting great thinkers and writers. “‘The wound is the place where the light enters you’ – Rumi, Persian,” she says. There is a mischievous gleam in her eye when she says “‘Tomorrow there’ll be more of us’ – Miranda, American,” quoting Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. Wearing patchwork dresses of satins and embroidered materials, she looks as though a fabric store had exploded around her, but Kaling pulls it off.

Oprah Winfrey, in a bit of casting almost too spot-on, is Which, the wisest of them all. She first appears with the others in Meg’s backyard, towering above them at several times human height, with silver eyebrows, a metallic silver dress and glittery silver lipstick. “Be a warrior,” she tells Meg. “Can you do it?” Actually, “Be a warrior,” sounds a bit like Olivia Pope on Scandal cheering on her Gladiators, but it could also be advice from the real-life Oprah. And everybody knows that when Oprah tells you to do something, you do it.

But there the film’s problems begin. Meg sets off to rescue her father from the dark forces of evil, accompanied by other characters solidly drawn from the novel: her intuitive, genius of a little brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), and Calvin (Levi Miller), a cute, popular guy from school who’s smart enough to appreciate unglamorous Meg, with her jeans and glasses.

The screen goes wavy – it actually wrinkles – when they all tesser, or travel to another time and place. The effect is the first of many disappointing, oddly unimaginative visual choices.

The images work best in the planet Uriel, a beautiful place where pink flowers hover above the ground and move their petals as if they were butterflies. “I speak colour,” Mrs Whatsit says, explaining why she can communicate with them, teaching Meg to do the same. But there is something clumsy about the creature Whatsit turns into: a green flying carpet that looks like a blade of grass attached to an animated version of Witherspoon’s face. A subterranean cave where they all meet a seer called The Happy Medium (Zach Galifianakis) looks like it was made of orange lucite Legos. The force of evil that appears ominously in the sky is no more than a black cloud of particles that seems very unlikely to threaten the universe. Wherever this film put its $100 million budget, that money is not evident in its bland production design and special effects.

The film flags most of all when the children travel to Camerzotz, a planet devoid of light, where the Mrs cannot go. The film’s best designs are the simplest there. Meg finds her father in a claustrophobic orange corridor. That confined space seems more evil than anything else on the planet, including the brain called The It that for a time claims the soul of Charles Wallace.

There’s no doubt, as Selma and her earlier films show, that DuVernay is a great director of drama. Reid and Pine bring genuine emotion to the father-daughter reunion, and to their struggle to save each other. The film’s themes of love, family and self-acceptance are powerful enough to resonate with audiences. But the concept and casting shouldn’t be the most magical parts of a fantasy film, no matter how enchanting its message is.

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A Wrinkle in Time Reviews

Disney, you will be relieved to hear, has done a decent job of adapting A Wrinkle in Time for television...

Full Review | Jan 25, 2018

Somewhat clunky but mostly faithful to the book.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 1, 2011

I haven't read the book, but I can't imagine, given its popularity, that it would have been read by as many people as it has if it were as mundane as this movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Nov 17, 2004

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‘A Wrinkle in Time’ Review: Kids-Lit Classic Is One Magnificently Weird, Messy Blockbuster

By David Fear

“It was a dark and stormy night.” That’s the first sentence of Madeline L’Engle’s 1962 fantasy novel A Wrinkle in Time, a smoke-screen opening salvo that doesn’t begin to prep readers for what lies ahead in this beloved kids’ book: tesseracts and shape-shifting biddies, shadowy forces and M.I.A. fathers, interdimensional travel and preternaturally genius preteens and the revolutionary notion that a young woman can save the world. From such simple, mundane beginnings spring the skeleton keys that unlock imaginations, and if you can say nothing else about Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of this middle school curriculum staple, it most definitely taps into a childlike sense of what-if wonder. What if a run-of-the-mill misfit kid like Meg Murry (Storm Reid) had the power to stop evil from taking over? What if the neighborhood’s crazy cat ladies were really time-tripping celestial beings? What if you took a lot of corporate money and made a genuinely odd, hallucinogenic movie that featured youngsters flying through a candy-colored landscape on a leathery cabbage?

And: What if a major blockbuster property was made by a woman of color? It’s not a question we should still have to be asking in 2018, and thankfully, we no longer have to. The story behind Wrinkle ‘s waltz to the screen has arguably eclipsed the film itself, and it’d be disingenuous not to acknowledge what a big deal it is that DuVernay – and not, say, some white twentysomething male with one decent Sundance movie under his belt – has been handed the reins to this massive endeavor. There’s never been a question as to whether she’s a major filmmaker: Middle of Nowhere (2012) should be taught in film schools on how to make a perfect intimate indie, and Selma (2014) is one of the best biopics made by anybody in the last 20 years, full stop. It was simply whether the barrier-breaking accomplishment would, in the end, outweigh the end-result achievement. This Wrinkle in Time is undoubtedly flawed, wildly uneven and apt to tie itself in narrative knots in a quest to wow you with sheer Technicolor weirdness. It’s also undeniably DuVernay’s movie as much as Disney’s, and works best when she puts her feminine energy, high-flying freak flag and sense of empathy front and center.

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So yes, join Meg and her brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) on that dark and stormy night, as they welcome a visitor named Mrs. Whatsit ( Reese Witherspoon ) into their household. Mom (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is understandably confused as to why this cheerful eccentric has shown up unannounced in her living room; she’s also shocked to be told that “tesseracts” are real, given that her husband ( Chris Pine ) had been preaching about a time-travel concept with that very name before he mysteriously disappeared. The siblings begin to wonder whether the woman knows where their dad is. They’re soon joined by dreamy neighborhood teen Calvin (Levi Miller) and Mrs. Whatsit’s daffy companion, the quote-spewing Mrs. Who ( Mindy Kaling ) – for once, Who’s on second and Whats(it)’s on first. As for third base, that would be the divine being that towers over all of them and calls the shots. Unsurprisingly, she looks just like Oprah.

From the moment Winfrey’s gigantic earth mother starts making a backyard bend and ripple like a disturbed waterbed, Wrinkle begins toggling between very familiar multiplex fodder and a sort of Fischer-Price’s My First Acid Trip. Between Naomi Shohan’s production design, which spans everything from Seussian fantasias to slate-grey wastelands to a beach filled with enough Day-Glo to blind an outer borough, and Paco Delgado’s extraordinary everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink costume design, the movie’s visual template tends to favor a lysergic sense of excess. (We sincerely hope Kaling got to keep those Spongebob-square ruffled pantaloons.) Bizarre touches abound, from the questionable – sure, why not make an oracle Zach Galifianakis in guyliner! – to the inspired, like a creepy suburban nightmare of 1950s conformity, bouncing balls and dead-eyed kids.

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Whether these genuinely offbeat, brain-melting scenarios actually sync up with Frozen writer Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell’s script, however, is where we start to find ourselves on even shakier ground than our protagonists. You’re never sure whether you’re watching a psychedelic, “difficult” science fiction movie hidden inside a Disney kids’ movie or vice versa – and you’re never sure if the movie’s ambitious attempt to serve both of those masters is a feature or a bug. The result is indeed an eyeful, an earful, a handful, but one that’s hard not to feel is dotted with collateral damage. DuVernay has reclaimed and rejiggered the concept of hero’s journey by recasting it for a young black woman, which is no small feat (and, it bears repeating, a necessity). Yet her star Storm Reid and the story itself seem to keep getting relegated and/or faded into the background at key moments, whether from sensory overload or stock moments like a shadow monster named “The IT” mounting a climactic CGI attack. No amount of Oprah’s self-affirmations can stave off the feeling that there’s tug of war going on here.

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DuVernay doesn’t so much win said war as fight it to a draw, and what you’re left with is a movie of dizzying peaks and stomach-dropping valleys. It’s worth seeing just to bask in a film that does ask for inclusion on such a grand scale, that does score points both subtle and not-so-subtle (“I’ve never seen the point of fences,” notes Whatsit, and the subtext is understood), that does question why the province of tentpoles belongs to one group and not every group. What she brings to the party is invaluable. And what is on screen is a singular adaptation that stumbles more than you wish it would. If you can embrace that and forget the title’s baggage, this dark, stormy ride may make up for it in sheer out-thereness. Every generation gets The NeverEnding Story it deserves. This one may very well be ours.

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A Wrinkle in Time Reviews Highlight the Movie's All-Star Cast and Inspirational Message

Ava duvernay's $100 million movie stars mindy kaling, storm reid, oprah winfrey and reese witherspoon.

"It was a dark and stormy night."

That's the first sentence of Madeline L'Engle 's 1962 novel, A Wrinkle in Time —and in Walt Disney Studios' film adaptation (out Friday), Ava DuVernay remains faithful to its opening line. And while the director has changed some elements—by diversifying the characters and changing the setting from Connecticut to California—fans of the book will not be disappointed.

The movie tells the story of Meg ( Storm Reid ), a brainy middle school student whose physicist father ( Chris Pine ) has mysteriously disappeared. Three celestial beings—Mrs. Who ( Mindy Kaling ), Mrs. Which ( Oprah Winfrey ) and Mrs. Whatsit ( Reese Witherspoon )—hear "a cry in the universe" and journey to Earth to help Meg find her father—and later confront "It," an evil force. The movie also stars Zach Galifianakis , Gugu Mbatha-Raw , Levi Miller and Michael Peña .

Here's what critics have to say about A Wrinkle in Time :

• Reid's portrayal of Meg is "a coup of casting that's crowned by DuVernay's direction of her," The New Yorker 's Richard Brody writes. "Reid is a rare departure from the usual run of exuberant and perky kids (of both sexes) who tend to inhabit children's films. There's a mask-like implacability to Meg, an approach to the world that, for all its anger and frustration, doesn't dare reveal itself fully, even to Meg herself." Much Like L'Engle's novel, DuVernay's film "catches the sense of exhilaration and wonder that arises from the story's elements of fantasy."

• "You never once doubt this movie's commitment to the book's intense emotional reality—its warmth," The Boston Globe 's Ty Burr writes, praising DuVernay for capturing the core message of L'Engle's story: "love of family, love of being alive, love of our common humanity and the experiences that bind us together." Its biggest achievement "is the strength of family feeling at its center," Burr adds. "Pine is at his most gently charismatic here, and he conveys immense fatherly devotion as Dr. Murray (along with at least one fairly sizable foible). Reid's Meg is both marvelous and real, a beautiful nerd girl finally coming into a knowledge of her own power."

• "This is a sci-fi film that smiles back at the people of color who have eternally loved the genre despite being nonsensically rebuked by it, one that is feminine but not for-females-only," The Daily Beast 's Kevin Fallon writes. "It's a film in which the lead is a teenage, biracial girl, one with un-self-conscious interest in and aptitude for science and math, who goes on a journey to embrace the parts of her she's been told by society to ignore or demean, and uses those very qualities as weapons to save the day. If DuVernay occasionally lingers the camera a beat or two longer than we're used to on images of Storm as Meg on her path to victory, it's because she's luxuriating in their meaning, lavishing those images on the young people who will be watching."

• "The movie offers numerous pleasures for grown-ups," The Seattle Times ' Moira Macdonald writes, praising Kaling, Winfrey and Witherspoon. "It's no surprise that lines like 'Be a warrior!' are catnip to Winfrey—whose essential and undisguisable Oprah-ness is embraced here—but it's a kick to see her delivering them through be-glittered lips. (Give this movie an Oscar for makeup, right now.) Kaling, usually a comedic performer, demonstrates a gentle, quiet goodness that's quite moving and Witherspoon has some fun as the most scattered of the trio."

• " A Wrinkle in Time , faithful to the affirmative, democratic intelligence of the book, is also committed to serving its most loyal and susceptible audience. This is, unapologetically, a children's movie, by turns gentle, thrilling and didactic, but missing the extra dimension of terror and wonder that would have transcended the genre," The New York Times ' A.O. Scott writes, adding that the movie is "demonstratively generous, encouraging and large-spirited." And to DuVernay's credit, the film "trusts words more than images, spelling out messages about love, courage and self-acceptance with the conscientious care of a teacher reading aloud to a class...Nobody will miss the lessons of the movie, and they are fine and timely lessons," Scott continues. "Those who take them most to heart will find their way back to Madeleine L'Engle."

• "A sincere attempt at empowerment crushed into preachy dullness," A Wrinkle in Time "hits that unfortunate un-sweet spot common to big-budget science-fiction/fantasy, where the spectacle feels more summarized than experienced," Entertainment Weekly 's Darren Franich writes. "Almost nothing works, but there are bursts of real camp energy." Although DuVernay "splendidly diversifies the cast," he argues the director also "sends everyone to planets that all look like green-screen calamities, as colorful and infuriating as Apple's rainbow wheel of death."

• "The power of love can only do so much in Disney's misbegotten A Wrinkle in Time ," USA Today 's Brian Truitt writes, calling it a "woeful, head-scratching adaptation" of L'Engle's novel. The author's source material "is a sneakily deep novel for youngsters," and screenwriters Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell don't "do nearly enough with those themes of death, loss and parents letting their children down," Truitt argues. "Instead, theirs is a patchwork adaptation with weak character development, a lack of narrative groove and a haphazard finish." On the plus side, Reid "lends a surprising amount of gravitas" to her role, Winfrey is the "highlight" of the Mrses., and DuVernay "does wonders in crafting an inviting fantasy landscape. She has an interesting visual style, with close-ups and perspectives that aren't normally seen in the genre."

• "By turns gorgeous, propulsive and feverishly overwrought, A Wrinkle in Time is an otherworldly glitter explosion of a movie, the kind of picture that wears its heart on its tie-dyed sleeve. It's the product of a big, unwieldy and excitingly go-for-broke vision, one etched in bright hues and kaleidoscopic visual effects, in busy musical orchestrations and original pop songs..." The Los Angeles Times ' Justin Chang writes. Though it could be "more focused, more disciplined," he says, it offers "gloriously unapologetic trippiness, a hallucinatory quality that is only amplified by the sheer velocity of the storytelling." In "every swirling frame," viewers can sense her "desire to lose herself and her audience in the material." Best of all, it reinforces the "fervent" idea "that a young girl's imagination can change, challenge and even save the world."

• DuVernay excels in that she "most definitely taps into a childlike sense of what-if wonder," Rolling Stone 's David Fear writes. But the family-friendly movie "is undoubtedly flawed, wildly uneven and apt to tie itself in narrative knots in a quest to wow you with sheer Technicolor weirdness. It's also undeniably DuVernay's movie as much as Disney's, and works best when she puts her feminine energy, high-flying freak flag and sense of empathy front and center." But, on the whole, "You're never sure whether you're watching a psychedelic, 'difficult' science fiction movie hidden inside a Disney kids' movie or vice versa—and you're never sure if the movie's ambitious attempt to serve both of those masters is a feature or a bug. The result is indeed an eyeful, an earful, a handful, but one that's hard not to feel is dotted with collateral damage."

• "Awash in bold colors, bright patterns and ebullient kids," A Wrinkle in Time "dazzles its way across time and space even if it doesn't quite stick the landing," The Wrap 's Alonso Duralde writes. "A psychedelic journey for 6-year-olds of all ages," the fantasy film "offers trippy delights without defying the novel's 'unfilmable' reputation." DuVernay's team imbues "as much epic grandeur as they can into a story that seems to take place over the course of a languid afternoon," thanks to vivid imagery and an "ensemble of charming performances." Though the final act "feels like a multi-part miniseries that's been cut down to a feature film," it's not a "deal-breaker," Duralde adds, "and the production's strengths far outweigh its flaws."

• DuVernay's film "feels cobbled together with many diverse parts rather that coalesced into an engaging whole," The Hollywood Reporter 's Todd McCarthy writes. Kaling "has unfairly little to say or do," Winfrey "kind of floats through much of it" and Witherspoon "becomes annoyingly overbearing." A Wrinkle in Time "is most tolerable when it remains centered on the three kids, their bickering and their underlying 'there for you' inter-dependency. Meg is appealing because you know that behind her reticence lies a smart and resourceful girl who will one day be able to fully assert herself without having to be told every five minutes that, 'You just have to have faith in who you are,'" he adds. While there are "sights to behold," it all "seems manufactured rather than crafted, with scenes played and over-edited to visually busy but indifferent effect."

Are you planning to see A Wrinkle in Time ? Sound off in the comments!

A Wrinkle In Time Review

23 Mar 2018

A Wrinkle In Time

Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time is a children’s classic, showered with awards on publication in 1962 and in print ever since. But with its spare prose and cosmos-spanning concepts, and in particular given its non-ending, the novel is a particularly tricky proposition for the screen. Director Ava DuVernay’s solution is to throw visual dazzle at the issues, but always returning, occasionally only just in time, to the emotions that made the book work.

Our heroine is Meg (Reid), a 13-year-old who has gone from gifted student to isolated malcontent in the four years following the disappearance of her scientist father (Pine). Her precocious little brother Charles Wallace (McCabe) loyally defends her, as does her fascinated schoolmate Calvin (Miller, stuck with the thin adoring-girlfriend role), but she pulls away even from them. That is, until the weird Mrs Whatsit (Witherspoon) turns up to tell them that Meg’s father is alive and merely stranded across the universe. With her even more uncanny companions, Mrs Who (Mindy Kaling) and Mrs Which (Oprah Winfrey), the three kids set off to follow him, folding space in a process called “tessering” (from a four-dimensional tesseract, see?) to step across galaxies like they were paving stones. There is, of course, an enemy to stand against them. After a quick stop on the heavenly planet of Uriel they travel to Camazotz, a bizarrely uniform world under the control of an ultimate evil called It (It again, having a good year). There, Meg and Charles Wallace are tested to the limit as they fight for their father.

For all the stumbles along the way, the message that the film eventually delivers is an important one.

Much of the film is gloriously inventive, with some visionary touches: precariously balanced towers of amber, for example, or a deeply disturbing afternoon at the beach. The costumes and make-up of the three Mrses are to die for, from Oprah’s jewelled eyebrows to Kaling's Hopi hair. And this is a film that is inclusive in its DNA, from posters of Maya Angelou and James Baldwin in Meg’s school to Mrs Who’s quotation of OutKast, Shakespeare and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The racebending of Meg adds an extra dimension to her feelings of insecurity, as well as providing a rare balance to the endless fantasy films about white people. Magic shouldn’t have a skin colour. That said, DuVernay and her screenwriters, Frozen ’s Jennifer Lee and Bridge To Terabithia ’s Jeff Stockwell, made the probably wise decision to streamline the book’s wilder aspects too, namely Charles Wallace’s otherworldliness and Calvin’s strange mental powers.

Sometimes, however, the film seems to pause a little too long to admire its own cleverness, the camera lingering on a CGI-assisted landscape straight out of What Dreams May Come , with the colours turned up to 11 and the levels of reality hovering near zero. The tone pinballs about desperately in the film’s first half, with Witherspoon the only one acting like she’s in a kids’ film (in fairness, she’s the one most closely working with the kids). It’s not until Oprah comes down to ground level that the tone begins to settle.

Once it does, the film finds its stride. It does so by focusing on Meg, and the deep cracks in her psyche left by her father’s apparent abandonment, in an extraordinarily good performance from Reid. Meg blames herself, wonders if she was somehow unworthy of love, and is basically riddled with self-doubt and fear. That terror is what she has to overcome, and Reid sells it flawlessly. For all the stumbles along the way, the message that the film eventually delivers is an important one about embracing your faults and believing yourself worthy, and that makes up for a lot of overly baroque flourishes.

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A Wrinkle In Time Review

Disney has shown increasing boldness in the stories that it has been willing to tell over the last few years, and now it has set its sights on one of the most iconic and challenging books ever written: Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time . Bringing Selma director Ava DuVernay into the equation, the film has reimagined its narrative to feel thematically relevant for the modern era, but its bright and shiny new sheen ultimately isn't enough to save it from some severe storytelling issues.

A Wrinkle in Time tells a story almost identical to that of Madeleine L'Engle's original book, albeit with a few twists. Meg Murry ( Storm Reid ) is a nerdy, impetuous, and misunderstood southern California girl trying to find her way in life, while also watching out for her brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) and her mother (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) four years after the mysterious disappearance of her father Alex Murry ( Chris Pine ) during a physics experiment. Unwilling to let her father go, Meg soon stumbles into a mysterious new adventure when Charles Wallace introduces her to Mrs. Who ( Mindy Kaling ), Mrs. Whatsit ( Reese Witherspoon ), and Mrs. Which ( Oprah Winfrey ), three cosmic beings in search of warriors to help them find Meg's missing father. Together, along with their new friend Calvin (Levi Miller), they go on an interstellar mission to uncover the secrets of the universe, defeat a dark force threatening the cosmos, and reunite their broken family.

Once on the adventure itself, A Wrinkle in Time has a hard time staying in one place long enough to forge a connection with a setting or an environment. By its very nature, the story jumps around a lot, but it is hard not to shake the feeling that A Wrinkle in Time could use an extra 20 minutes on its runtime, so our characters can sit down and forge real bonds with one another. As it stands now, Calvin's arrival and willingness to join up with Meg and Charles Wallace comes out of nowhere, and the film's set pieces mostly boil down to Meg, her brother, and her new friend "tessering" (or teleporting) aimlessly through the cosmos. There are some great moments with characters like The Happy Medium (a surprisingly emotional Zack Galifianakis), but they are undercut by A Wrinkle in Time 's hurry to get to the next set piece.

Much of this stems from A Wrinkle in Time 's surprising fidelity to the book. While the look of almost everything has changed, the structure of the tale remains intact, and some pieces of dialogue are lifted wholesale. Purists will likely appreciate the faithfulness to the source material, but the structure of A Wrinkle in Time does not necessarily lend itself to the traditional three-act format of a movie. Lengthy scenes from the book (such as the cul-de-sac scene on Camazotz) are shoehorned in, but their relevance is never entirely explained in a way that enriches the overall movie.

Another element of the story that doesn't quite succeed in its transition to the screen is the establishment of conflict and stakes for A Wrinkle in Time 's story. The book deals in very abstract concepts of a dark evil surging through the universe and destroying love with its negativity, but the visual portrayal of that entity (referred to as "The It") doesn't quite land in the film adaptation. A good story is ultimately only as good as its villain, but A Wrinkle in Time suffers because The It mostly looks like Parallax from Martin Campbell 's Green Lantern , except it gets even less screen time to flesh out its limited personality, motivation, or intention.

One area in which A Wrinkle in Time definitely does succeed is the sheer amount of imagination and inventiveness that goes into some of its set pieces. Yes, some of the CGI work is really bad in several scenes, but there are also many sequences that take concepts from the original novel and expand upon them in some breathtaking ways. The scene in which Meg uses Mrs. Who's glasses to see at CENTRAL Central Intelligence stands out as one particularly awesome moment, and the reimagining of Red ( Michael Pena ) as a marionette-esque robot is another.

As for the cast, the quality of the performances has a tendency to vary. The Mrs. all have fun chewing the scenery with their respective quirks, but Oprah Winfrey is the only one who appeals to Meg on a genuinely emotional level. Among the kids, Storm Reid is the only young member of the ensemble who truly shines. Levi Miller is not given enough to do for him to leave a real impact on audiences, and Deric McCabe's Charles Wallace is one of the most gratingly annoying movie characters in recent memory. Like so many other elements from the book, the film seems to assume that audiences will pick up on the importance of these relationships, rather than take the time to show why they matter.

Out of everybody on the cast, Chris Pine is the clear standout of the bunch. He brings a level of charm, charisma, and fatherly love that warms the otherwise cold film, and the scenes that feature him tend to shine as A Wrinkle in Time 's best moments. It almost leaves us wondering if Ava DuVernay would've been better off telling a looser adaptation focusing on Alex Murry's four-year journey instead of Meg's.

Despite some sharp visuals and interesting ideas, the film ultimately tells a meandering story that fails to capture the magic of the source material. Fans of A Wrinkle in Time have waited decades for a truly great adaptation of the book, but it looks like they are going to have to keep waiting.

Originally from Connecticut, Conner grew up in San Diego and graduated from Chapman University in 2014. He now lives in Los Angeles working in and around the entertainment industry and can mostly be found binging horror movies and chugging coffee.

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Read Screen Rant's A Wrinkle in Time Review Here

The first reviews for Disney's A Wrinkle in Time are now online. Directed by Selma 's Ava DuVernay from a script by Frozen 's Jennifer Lee and Bridge to Terabithia 's Jeff Stockwell, A Wrinkle in Time is a live-action adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's iconic science fantasy novel of the same name that was first published in 1962. Disney acquired the rights to develop adapt the story after the success of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 2010 - and the project was first announced that following October.

According to the official synopsis, A Wrinkle in Time stars Storm Reid as Meg Murry, who embarks on a quest - with the help of Charles Wallace Murry (Deric McCabe) and Calvin O'Keefe (Levi Miller) - to find her father, Dr. Alex Murry (Chris Pine), after he goes missing four years prior. They are guided on their journey to save Alex Murry by Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey), Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), and Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling). A Wrinkle in Time is one of the most anticipated movies of the season because of its story and the people behind the project; it's the first movie of its size (over $100 million budget) to be directed by a woman of color.

Related: A Wrinkle in Time: AMC & Color of Change Reveal New Initiative

The review embargo for A Wrinkle in Time has now lifted, and the first reviews have flooded online. We've compiled SPOILER-FREE excerpts below (click on the corresponding links to read the reviews in full at the respective websites).

The three goddesses in A Wrinkle in Time.

Variety - Peter Debruge - No score

Juggling so many extreme look changes it comes off feeling like a tacky interstellar fashion show at times, the film hops from one planet to the next too quickly for us to grow sufficiently attached to adolescent heroine Meg Murry (Storm Reid) or invested in her quest to find her missing father (Chris Pine), a scientist who disappeared four years earlier just as he thought he’d found a breakthrough means of traveling great distances through space via something called a tesseract . That term, like so much of the vocabulary in L’Engle’s book, asks children to reach beyond their reading level in order to follow a story that projects Meg from the comfort of her suburban backyard to worlds where entities feel and communicate in radically different ways — a mind-expanding invitation for empathy, if ever there was one.

The Wrap - Alonso Duralde - No score

“A Wrinkle in Time” is just weird and wonderful enough to generate a cult following, and it’s the kind of movie that the kids of 2018 are going to remember with genuine affection and wonder when they become the adults of 2035. (And how exciting to see a movie that makes science appealing to young audiences.) It’s an expensive art film for children — and that’s a good thing.

THR - Todd McCarthy - No score

Only the faintest glimmers of genuine, earned emotion pierce through the layers of intense calculation that encumber Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time. Disney's lavish adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's fantastical 1962 book (there were four sequels) about a girl's journey through multiple dimensions to find her long-missing father may provide enough distractions to keep kids in the lowest double-digits age range interested. All the same, DuVernay's first big-budget studio studio extravaganza after breaking through with Selma and the great documentary 13 th feels cobbled together with many diverse parts rather that coalesced into an engaging whole. Even if this is widely consumed by the target audience, it doesn't charm or disarm.

IndieWire - David Ehrlich - C+

At a time when Disney would rather fund suffocatingly faithful (and/or toxically garish) “live-action” remakes of classic films than roll the dice on original stories for a new generation of kids, there’s something refreshing — and downright beautiful — about what Ava DuVernay has done with “A Wrinkle in Time.” Less satisfying than the recent “Pete’s Dragon,” but told with a similar degree of revisionist zeal, this eye-popping adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved 1962 novel scrubs away the Christian overtones of the source material in favor of some distinctly 21st century humanism.

/Film - Josh Spiegel - 7.5/10

There are some scenes in A Wrinkle in Time that run the gamut of emotion, leaping from feeling transcendent to awkward to painful to fascinating in the span of a minute or two. The film is undeniably flawed and messy, but there is a strong, passionate sense of heartbreak at its core, and the underlying message of hope and love manages to be both corny and aspirational. For all of its heady ideas, A Wrinkle in Time succeeds emotionally. For all its flaws, it has a sterling lead performance, some unexpectedly resonant images, and an unerring sense of the woman behind the camera bringing this all to life. A Wrinkle in Time may be messy, but in a uniquely admirable way.

EW - Darren Franich - C

So A Wrinkle in Time hits that unfortunate un-sweet spot common to big-budget science-fiction/fantasy, where the spectacle feels more summarized than experienced. (Not helping much: Ramin Djawadi’s oddly terrible score, screaming emotions like an overgrown thought balloon covering up its own illustration.) Almost nothing works, but there are bursts of real camp energy. ... So much to consider here: culture, race, Meg’s self-image, the brutal society challenging that image. Depressingly, A Wrinkle in Time has less in common with its spiky protagonist than her plastic doppelganger, flattened into familiar wonders, a sincere attempt at empowerment crushed into preachy dullness.

Ava DuVernay and Storm Reid talking on the set of A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time 's reviews resemble are decidedly mixed, which seem to fall in-line with the movie's first reactions . It seems virtually every critic agrees that the film has its ups and downs, with many focusing on its many misses. But overall, the movie was a wonderful adventure with beautiful designs and a strong message for all audiences. Frankly, that's what Disney does best: deliver the right message. So, in that regard, DuVernay succeeded in her adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time .

Then again, the film may not be critically successful enough to justify an adaptation of L'Engle's sequels, collectively known as the Time Quintet. A Wrinkle in Time hits theaters on Friday, March 9, and it is one of Disney's first major movies of the year. While they've seen success with recent live-action adaptation of their classic animated films (of which many are based on previously written works), A Wrinkle in Time marks one of their most daring risks in recent years, so we'll just have to wait and see if it was a wise decision... or not.

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A Wrinkle In Time

A Wrinkle in Time

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DVD & Streaming

A Wrinkle in Time

Action/Adventure , Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

March 9, 2018
Storm Reid as Meg; Oprah Winfrey as Mrs. Which; Reese Witherspoon as Mrs. Whatsit; Mindy Kaling as Mrs. Who; Levi Miller as Calvin; Deric McCabe as Charles Wallace; Chris Pine as Mr. Murry; Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Mrs. Murry; Zach Galifianakis as the Happy Medium

Home Release Date

June 5, 2018
Ava DuVernay

Distributor

Movie Review

It was a dark and stormy night.

Meg Murry knows all about such nights. In a way, her life’s been an endless dark, stormy night for the last four years, ever since her father disappeared.

He never even said goodbye.

Maybe he couldn’t. The NASA scientist was working on something big—exploring the concept of the tesseract , a so-called “wrinkle in time” where space folds in on itself, allowing rapid transit between stars, constellations, maybe whole galaxies.

Perhaps Mr. Murry found a way to make the tesseract work. Perhaps he was sent by the government on a daring mission. Perhaps. Or perhaps Mr. Murry simply … left. Gossips speculate that Mr. Murry tired of his wife and children and deserted them.

For Meg, the reason doesn’t much matter. Her father’s gone, and she’s never been the same. She lashes out at school, fights with her classmates. She feels awkward and ugly and desperately unintelligent. On the anniversary of her father’s disappearance, someone sticks a note on her locker: “Happy anniversary,” it says. “If only you’d disappear too!”

Back at home, Meg goes downstairs and finds her younger brother, Charles Wallace, heating up milk. Always good to be prepared , he says. Sure enough, Meg’s mother soon comes down, and there’s enough milk for her, too. Then there’s a knock on the door.

In traipses a rather alarming red-haired woman wearing a gown made from, it appears, stolen sheets. She’s a strange one, she is, and a stranger to boot—a stranger to everyone, apparently, but young Charles Wallace. He calls her Mrs. Whatsit.

She visits for a spell, tossing off strange little sentences here and there, admitting that wild, stormy nights like this are her glory. But before she departs, she turns to Mrs. Murry and says, “By the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract.”

Then she’s gone, leaving the gaping Mrs. Murry behind.

Meg doesn’t know it just yet, but she’s just taken her first step on a galaxy-spanning adventure involving herself, Charles Wallace, a popular boy from school named Calvin and three of the strangest women Meg’s ever seen. If all goes well, they might just rescue Meg and Charles Wallace’s father. Oh, and save the universe while they’re at it.

But it won’t be easy: Many a dark and stormy night is on its way.

Positive Elements

A Wrinkle in Time is a curious bird, an intimate tale of family told on a galactic canvas.

We’re told that Mrs. Whatsit and her two associates, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which, are creatures of the light—celestial beings who battle darkness wherever they find it. But they do so with help: They mention that some of the greatest “warriors” against the darkness have come from Earth (rattling off names such as Einstein, Marie Curie and Gandhi), and these women would like Meg to join the fight now, too.

Meg, desperately insecure, initially doubts her role in this cosmic battle. But the plural “Mrs.” (as they’re called) encourage her to believe in herself—her inner beauty, her intelligence, her uniqueness. The wise Mrs. Which reminds Meg how improbable it is that she’s even here at all—how many events throughout the ages had to come together to make Meg “just exactly the way you are.” They encourage her to marshal not just her strengths, but her faults . Even her pain can become a catalyst for growth and hope, they say.

The tesseract, we eventually learn, is launched through love. Curiously, Mr. Murry makes this breakthrough as he watches his wife and adopted son, Charles Wallace, through a window—catalyzing the tesser that, seconds later, rips him away from his family. Elsewhere during the movie, Meg’s love for her family—first for her father, then for Charles Wallace—literally pulls her toward them, always at great risk to herself. And while I don’t want to give away too much, this film is suggests love is indeed the greatest power in the universe.

We also witness some nice family moments and hear some affirming messages about adoption. And the movie sprinkles plenty of wise little adages throughout. For instance:

“Love is always there, even if you don’t feel it,” Meg’s dad tells her.

“Of course, we can’t take any credit for our talents,” Mrs. Whatsit says. “It’s how we use them that counts.”

“It’s OK to fear the answers, Meg,” someone called the Happy Medium says. “But you can’t avoid ’em.”

I could go on, but it’s time to go on with the review.

Spiritual Elements

Those who’ve read Madeleine L’Engle’s novel A Wrinkle in Time may remember that, while not an explicitly Christian story (and Jesus, some argue, is put on a par with other secular and religious leaders), it contains a considerable level of Christian thought. L’Engle regularly quotes the Bible throughout that book.

Alas, most of those explicit references have been torn away here, replaced (at least superficially) with a certain unmoored spiritual tang.

Mrs. Who (who speaks mainly through other people’s words) quotes Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran, who was raised as a Christian but who also was influenced by Sufi Islamic mysticism. She quotes Buddha and the Islamic poet Rumi, too: “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Mrs. Who emphasizes that God made us unique for a reason, and she says that pain can be an instrument for growth that can help marshal our apparent weaknesses for good.

To locate Meg and Charles Wallace’s father, the Happy Medium leads the children and the three Mrs. in a mystical, yoga-like ceremony. These elements, along with oft-repeated exhortations to “believe in yourself” and to embrace “oneness with the universe” could leave viewers with a New Age-y aftertaste.

That does not appear to be the creators’ intention, according to Wrinkle in Time producer Jim Whitaker, though they were aiming to make the film more inclusive. The filmmakers wanted the book’s spiritual themes to be “reflected widely in the movie for people of all faiths to be able to see themselves in it,” Whitaker told me.

We also see telekinetic forces are at work, and one character can apparently read minds well enough to see everyone’s innermost fears. Mrs. Who’s glasses have a bit of mystical power in them, as well.

Sexual & Romantic Content

Calvin and Meg are attracted to one another, but the closest we get to them being a “thing” (apart from a few lingering looks) is a hug here, some hand-holding there and a few compliments regarding Meg’s hair. Mr. and Mrs. Murry kiss, with each expressing love for the another.

We hear vague speculation that Mr. Murry “disappeared” with another woman. A beach scene includes some women in bikinis and shirtless guys. Mrs. Whatsit and the Happy Medium are an item, though Whatsit says that, after a billion years, they avoid labels. (They compliment each other on their outfits, and Whatsit calls the Happy Medium “cute.”)

Violent Content

Meg suffers the brunt of the movie’s sometimes perilous battering. She’s hoisted, pulled and thrown about by strange vines or tendrils. She and Calvin initially flee what seems to be a sentient storm, but then climb into a hollow tree trunk so that the storm (which transforms into a mighty tornado) can hurl them over a gigantic wall. Meg has trouble tessering, too, often coming out of this curious state of travel in serious pain and unable to move. (Mrs. Whatsit kicks her once afterwards, to confirm that she’s still alive.) She and others get pulled down a dark hallway by some unseen force.

Meg smacks someone in the face with a basketball. (Her mother later instructs her to write an apology letter.) Calvin falls from an incredible height, saved from certain death by sentient wildflowers. A character seems to sport glowing cracks in his face for a time, for some reason. The entity IT is referenced once as “the Happy Sadist.”

Crude or Profane Language

Drug & alcohol content, other noteworthy elements.

A dark evil is infiltrating Earth, causing many problems: One girl suffers from an eating disorder (her “eating rules” are posted on a bedroom wall). Calvin’s father berates him for a poor report card, calling him an “idiot.” Ruffians make fun of an apparently homeless guy and rifle through his stuff. Children sometimes talk back to authority figures (though the movie does not encourage that behavior), and Meg walks out on her principal.

It’s not easy to make a movie of such a beloved—and such a weird —children’s book. Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 classic has resisted efforts at cinematic translation for decades, and perhaps it was foolhardy for anyone to try. But give this Disney movie’s makers credit. Boy, did they try.

Producer Jim Whitaker told me that the production, led by director Ava DuVernay, “swung for the fences, I think in every department and every way.” And A Wrinkle in Time is indeed an incredibly daring movie. As Disney has been doing since Snow White , the studio bought the story and used it as the basis for the story it wanted to tell, leaving some of the book’s characters, scenes, themes and even feel on the cutting room floor.

The result is a bit of a messy tesseract itself.

The narrative here, while visually stunning, zooms from scene to scene with barely a reason and nary a structure, dropping us off on strange planets feeling breathless and unmoored. Sometimes things just don’t make much sense.

And the decision to strip the book’s Christian elements is mystifying to me, given the weight those elements have in the novel. It’s obvious that for L’Engle, those Christian echoes were part of the point. To excise the movie of explicit Christian allusions robs the story of some of its power, the very themes that made the novel so resonant to begin with.

At one juncture in the L’Engle’s story, for example, Dr. Murry gives Meg this exhortation, quoting Romans 8:28: “We were sent here for something,” he says. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.”

Contrast that with what I think is the film’s final line: “I believe in me.” Hey, it’s good to believe in yourself and all. But in comparison to the book’s clear Christian themes, the movie’s message feels overly light and perhaps a bit dispiriting.

And the thing is, DuVernay knows how to handle explicit faith elements in film. She did so masterfully in Selma , which focused on a critical moment in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s career. King’s Christian faith wasn’t an afterthought in Selma : It was central to the protagonist’s character and motivation, and I don’t think that anyone was offended by it. As it is, Disney’s attempt to be inoffensive may, ironically, offend those who could’ve been the movie’s biggest supporters: fans of the books and Christians.

But for a minute, let me set aside what the movie could’ve been and concentrate on what the movie is. And that movie is, at least in terms of its core messages, pretty good.

Meg is a wonderful, charismatic young heroine who pushes through her anxieties and insecurities not only to save her father, but to save the universe, too. This quest pits her and the forces of light—of truth and freedom and above all, love—against a dark entity that, like Satan, twists and contorts those values into something almost unrecognizable, something that uses our heroes’ own doubts and fears against them. The film shows us a family that’s both caring and broken, and it allows us to see how much they love each other even when they’re sometimes at their most unlovable. Maybe most importantly, A Wrinkle in Time still points, albeit in more subtle ways than the book, to timeless Christian truths: We are loved. We were made for a reason. As insignificant as we sometimes feel, we have purpose.

A Wrinkle in Time is no masterpiece. But it still has a wrinkle or two of its own that families can unpack and discuss. And that’s a wrinkle I can live with.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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A wrinkle in time.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 106 Reviews
Kids Say 103 Reviews

Parents Say

Based on 106 parent reviews

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Not even close to the book.

This title has:

Great messages
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Too much violence

Lovely movie and message!

Disappointing weird. dark, big departure from the book, shocked this was rated a 6+, honestly terrible, "woke" version of good book.

Educational value

Director/producer/screenwriter has obviously never actually read A Wrinkle In Time

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‘we live in time’ review: florence pugh and andrew garfield deliver achingly resonant performances in a poignant romantic drama.

The two-hander, about a contemporary British couple facing a devastating medical diagnosis, is the latest from 'Brooklyn' director John Crowley.

By Michael Rechtshaffen

Michael Rechtshaffen

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Among today’s young acting talents, few possess the enviable combination of depth and charisma shared by Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield , who play to those considerable strengths as a contemporary British couple who find themselves facing a medical crisis in John Crowley’s deeply introspective We Live in Time.

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‘We Live in Time’ Review: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield Have Genuine Chemistry in Contrived Cancer Drama

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‘We Live in Time’ Review: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield Have Genuine Chemistry in Contrived Cancer Drama 2 days ago

One moment, award-winning chef Almut ( Florence Pugh ) is waking her beloved Tobias ( Andrew Garfield ) and asking him to sample her latest concoction, the next, it’s the middle of the night, and now-pregnant Almut is parked on the toilet while he times her contractions.

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By contrast, there’s just one reality in “We Live in Time” — which is fine, since that’s how most humans experience life — but Crowley figures its emotional beats will presumably hit harder if presented in a more strategic order. Still fine, since practically all storytellers arrange scenes to suit their narrative, though rarely do they remix them in quite so arbitrary a fashion as this.

Take away the sequencing gimmick, and you’re left with just another run-of-the-mill cancer drama, albeit one with a dream cast. At the heart of this strangely straightforward A24 release is Almut’s diagnosis: Stage 3 ovarian cancer. Later we learn that this case is a recurrence of an earlier bout with the disease, during which Almut had to decide whether to remove a single impacted ovary or her entire uterus. But we already know what they decided, since the couple has a daughter, Ella (Grace Delaney), whom we’ve seen shaving her mom’s head for round two.

While on the subject of timelines, it’s worth noting that Crowley has watched Andrew Garfield grow up. The director effectively discovered the then-future Spider-man star, first casting him as a juvenile delinquent in 2007’s “Boy A.” That means “We Live in Time” marks a reunion: a more mature project for both of them, but also a more manipulative one, as Crowley recognizes Garfield’s superpower — the watering eyes and quavering lips — and summons it at every step of their relationship.

Rather than giving away where their decade-long love story takes them, consider only their first contact, when Almut blindsides Tobias with her car. That’s a memorable initial spark to be sure, except by the point Crowley shows it, we’ve already been to the hospital, so it’s slightly disorienting to untangle which of them is the patient (hint: it’s the one in the neck brace). “Meet cute. Die cuter.” That could be the tagline for a movie which is determined to make every scene as endearing and/or adorable as possible.

Cancer is an ugly disease, and if we accept it here as more than just a device, then “We Live in Time” could be a comfort. (Then again, the filmmakers seem so committed to forcing an emotional reaction, terminal illness could be a cynical page from the Nicholas Sparks playbook?) So many of the moments Crowley presents are touchstones in most people’s lives: the childbirth scene is a showstopper, and Tobias’ proposal — bashfully delivered at the end of a hallway lined with candles and carrots — ranks up there with Hugh Grant classics.

That approach gives people who’ve faced cancer a swoony romance to cling to, though this couple experiences such an idealized form of it, normal folks might come away feeling they’re doing it wrong. What “We Live in Time” succeeds in doing differently is taking the woman’s concerns seriously. Tobias wants Almut to marry him and make babies, but as an ultra-competitive personality, she has different priorities. At once vulnerable and independent, Pugh plays Almut with the self-respect to assert them.

Who doesn’t love a gourmet cooking scene or several? They balance things nicely, wedged between make-ups, breakups and snogging. Several times, Crowley teaches up the best way to crack eggs (on a flat surface). If only there were a way to unscramble his movie.

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 6, 2024. Also in San Sebastian Film Festival. Running time: 107 MIN.

Production: (U.K.-France) An A24 release of a Studiocanal, Film4 presentation of a SunnyMarch production, in association with Shoebox Films. Producers: Adam Ackland, Leah Clarke, Guy Heeley.
Crew: Director: John Crowley. Screenplay: Nick Payne. Camera: Stuart Bentley. Editor: Justine Wright. Music: Bryce Dessner.
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A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
A Wrinkle in Time movie review (2018)
March 9, 2018. 5 min read. "A Wrinkle In Time," about three children and three magical beings trying to locate a missing physicist and stop evil from overwhelming the universe, is as dislocated from the current moviegoing moment as its human heroes are from their lives back on earth. It's a gentle fantasy, seemingly pitched at younger ...
Review: 'A Wrinkle in Time' Gives a Child of the Universe Powerful
Review: 'A Wrinkle in Time' Gives a Child of the Universe ...
A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
A Wrinkle in Time: Directed by Ava DuVernay. With Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling. After the disappearance of her scientist father, three peculiar beings send Meg, her brother, and her friend to space in order to find him.
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time boasts all the eye-popping CGI that modern movie-making can offer, with brilliant colors and vast landscapes, but at the movie's heart is a simple but not-so-easy-to-live lesson ...
'A Wrinkle in Time': Film Review
'A Wrinkle in Time,' Ava DuVernay's adaptation of the classic children's novel, boasts a starry cast including Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling and Chris Pine.
A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle In Time is at times visually stuning, and at times very cringy. The performance by the supporting cast feels like they could have casted anyone else and it wouldn't have made a difference. Storm Reid is by far the best of the movie, and her story is the most compelling. However, it isn't enough to save this trainwreck of a movie.
Film Review: 'A Wrinkle in Time'
Film Review: 'A Wrinkle in Time'. Reviewed at El Capitan theater, Los Angeles, Feb. 26, 2018. MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 109 MIN. Production: A Walt Disney Pictures release of a Disney ...
A Wrinkle in Time reviews: Here's what critics think
Angie Han (Mashable) " A Wrinkle in Time is for all the girls - and boys, and non-binary kids, and teens and adults and the elderly - who've ever been a Meg. It's a flawed film that ...
A Wrinkle in Time Review
Posted: Mar 7, 2018 5:00 pm. A Wrinkle in Time is ambitious, hopeful, and brimming with imagination -- a timely rallying cry for everyone who (to paraphrase T'Challa) believes in building ...
'A Wrinkle In Time' Review: Ava DuVernay Delivers A Unique And ...
Disney's A Wrinkle in Time represents a long-overdue milestone being passed. The fact that the film's director, Ava DuVernay of Selma and 13th, is the first woman of color to helm a Hollywood film ...
Film review: A Wrinkle in Time
Film review: A Wrinkle in Time. ... Wrinkle would look like a perfectly good Disney movie bound to appeal to its target audience of 10-year-old girls, and not so much to anyone hoping for dazzling ...
A Wrinkle in Time
Full Review | Jan 25, 2018. Somewhat clunky but mostly faithful to the book. Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 1, 2011. I haven't read the book, but I can't imagine, given its popularity ...
'A Wrinkle in Time' Review: One Magnificently Weird, Messy Blockbuster
By David Fear. March 7, 2018. 'A Wrinkle in Time' turns Madeline L'Engle's beloved book into one head-trip of a kids' movie - and one hell of a messy blockbuster. Our review. Atsushi Nishijima ...
A Wrinkle in Time Movie Review
6. It. In the book, the It is in a room on a dais and is a telepathic brain. In the movie, It, is a large expansive brain (so big it seems like a weird planet) the kids walk on. It just didn't seem gross or creepy like the book. 7. The climactic scene isn't close to what happens in the book.
What 11 Critics Think About Disney's A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time Reviews Highlight the Movie's All-Star Cast and Inspirational Message Ava DuVernay's $100 million movie stars Mindy Kaling, Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon.
A Wrinkle In Time Review
by Helen O'Hara |. Published on 07 03 2018. Release Date: 22 Mar 2018. Original Title: A Wrinkle In Time. Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time is a children's classic, showered with awards on ...
A Wrinkle In Time Review
A Wrinkle in Time tells a story almost identical to that of Madeleine L'Engle's original book, albeit with a few twists. Meg Murry is a nerdy, impetuous, and misunderstood southern California girl ...
A Wrinkle in Time (2018 film)
A Wrinkle in Time (2018 film)
A Wrinkle in Time Movie Review
Originally published in 1962, L'Engle's tale of sci-fi adventure aimed at young readers has become a book beloved by many. Now, the story comes to life in DuVernay's adaptation. A Wrinkle in Time offers an engaging family-friendly sci-fi adventure, but falls short of reaching the potential of its talented cast and director.
A Wrinkle in Time Movie Reviews Roundup
A Wrinkle in Time's reviews resemble are decidedly mixed, which seem to fall in-line with the movie's first reactions.It seems virtually every critic agrees that the film has its ups and downs, with many focusing on its many misses. But overall, the movie was a wonderful adventure with beautiful designs and a strong message for all audiences.
A Wrinkle in Time
Meg Murry knows all about such nights. In a way, her life's been an endless dark, stormy night for the last four years, ever since her father disappeared. He never even said goodbye. Maybe he couldn't. The NASA scientist was working on something big—exploring the concept of the tesseract, a so-called "wrinkle in time" where space ...
Parent reviews for A Wrinkle in Time
6. It. In the book, the It is in a room on a dais and is a telepathic brain. In the movie, It, is a large expansive brain (so big it seems like a weird planet) the kids walk on. It just didn't seem gross or creepy like the book. 7. The climactic scene isn't close to what happens in the book.
'We Live in Time' Review: Florence Pugh & Andrew Garfield Shine
Movies; Movie Reviews 'We Live in Time' Review: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield Deliver Achingly Resonant Performances in a Poignant Romantic Drama. The two-hander, about a contemporary ...
'We Live in Time' Review: John Crowley's Out-of-Order Love Story
'We Live in Time' Review: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield Have Genuine Chemistry in Contrived Cancer Drama The 'Midsommar' star and her 'Amazing Spider-Man' mate go great together in a mixed ...

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