While I would much rather come out of a movie theater either singing praises or unabashedly complaining, The Time Traveler's Wife, which came out Aug. 14, left me wondering why I did not feel compelled to do either. Days later, I still could not quite figure it out. Was it the acting? Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams star in the film, and although they both do their job credibly, neither of them step out of their comfort zone to meet the challenges of their roles.\nThe story is about a man who inexplicably travels to different parts of his life - whether it's weeks earlier or years later - and stays anywhere from five minutes to two weeks. The main complication is that he arrives naked after any instance of time traveling. Those who have seen Bana in the infamous version of The Hulk will already be accustomed to his wardrobe malfunctions on screen.\nMcAdams plays the woman who falls in love with him after he appears in the meadow outside her home when she is only 6 years of age. I, along with the rest of America, have fallen in love with her character each time she appears in a film - sweet, quirky, earnest and believable all wrapped up nicely in a strong personality. She follows suit in The Time Traveler's Wife to no detriment of her acting ability; the character was simply built similarly to her other roles. Either way, I cared enough about both characters to be discreetly wiping a few tears from my eyes at points in the movie.\nWhile I was talking to my mom about the movie earlier, I finally realized the major problems I had with it. One, it is too messy. A man who goes two weeks back in time will inevitably see his younger self, who might potentially be time traveling somewhere else at any given moment as well. If this is the case, then I have a hard time wrapping my mind around his character. Which is the original one? Who is in the present? It just ends up making the movie really confusing and leaves essential questions of time and space unanswered. Henry met his wife when she was 6 and later when he was older. She grows up and meets him before he has had a chance to travel back and meet her in her meadow, but when they get married, she marries the older one because the younger one accidentally time traveled before the ceremony. See? It is more than a little bit of a headache with which to keep up.\nMy second problem is the fact that the conflict of the plot is mainly concerned with marital unrest as a result of Henry's sporadic time traveling. Clare, McAdam's character, gets angry with him for being gone two weeks when he dematerializes in the kitchen one night and later asks herself why she chose a life with a man who might disappear any moment. This is my main problem with the movie - I just did not fully buy it. The movie seems to be stuck in this awkward world of fact and fantasy. Pick one genre and you would probably be able to justify your answer.\nThe movie unsuccessfully tries to answer questions such as: If you randomly time traveled, what would that do to your relationships? Could you take your clothes with you? Would your kids have the same problem eventually? Maybe I'm just being harsh - who knows, maybe this time traveling problem is the next big health concern after the H1N2 virus. Be warned.
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