A Wrinkle in Time: The Book, The Movie, and Moi

Yes, yes, it's been a while since I've written a post here. But you know what, I'm not going to beat around the bush here and apologize, I'm just gonna jump right into it because I just saw A WRINKLE IN TIME in theaters AND

Wow.

Okay.

So many, many, many thoughts.

SO. many. FEELINGS.

In fact, they are ALL of my feelings, both the good and bad, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. This movie is confusing, lovely, cringey, heartfelt, over-the-top, gorgeous.........it is ALL OF THE THINGS. IT IS ALL OF THE FEELINGS. And it's kind of awesome because of it.

Okay, okay, bear with me, I'm going to try and organize my thoughts here, gimme a sec.

So. Okay. A Wrinkle in Time was one of my absolute favorite books as a kid. And it's still one of my favorite books as an adult. The Time Quintet (the name of the series it starts) remains one of my favorite favorite FAVORITE series to return to. I still remember how I first found these books, when I was with my family on one of our many road-trips to Utah, and as per tradition we stopped at the BYU bookstore to pick something out. I was perusing the kid's section, and saw THIS cover:

I, lover of epic sci-fi and pretty horses that I was, immediately had to read it. And thus was this course begun.

A lot of people, when they talk about why they love A Wrinkle in Time, often cite Meg (the main character) as their favorite part. How flawed she is, how relateable she is, how real she is. And I can definitely see that. I, personally, absolutely loathed her character as a kid. Why? For precisely the same reasons everyone else loved her. Because I saw way too much of myself in her. She was TOO flawed, TOO human, WAY TOO MUCH like me. And it went way beyond the limits of my suspension of disbelief to imagine someone's faults actually being an important part of who they are, essential to their humanity and their virtues. Now, I can appreciate who the character of Meg is, and who she is portraying (i.e. all of us, except that we're not all math geniuses but that's okay), but back then I was like "AAAAGGGGHHHHH Meg is so WHINY. Why does she say stuff like this? UGH. SO immature!"

Heh. Heh heh. Yeah, sure, 11-year-old Laura. Whatever you say.

At any rate, what I was trying to get to was describing why I, personally, loved this book. And that reason was, it scratched an itch I did not know that I had: a story that had depth, with a huge, deep universe that was mysterious, and remained mysterious.

That probably wasn't a very good way of saying it. Let me try again by talking about something else that I love, the Myst series of games.

I grew up watching my dad and my siblings play the Myst games, and I was drawn into this world that those games created - mysterious worlds that you explored and slowly learned about, sometimes with the help of journal entries and cutscenes, but mostly on your own. Experiencing those games as a kid, when I didn't know how to read or what anyone was really saying in the cutscenes, with only a vague idea as to what the ultimate goal was, I was entranced. I loved the feeling of being somewhere I knew nothing about, exploring and learning bit by bit, stumbling across answers here and there but never really knowing everything about this place I was in. The idea of there being multiple worlds, and being able to travel between them, was mind-blowing to me. And not understanding how it all worked just made it so much richer. One of my biggest irritations with modern-day books - or any kind of book - is exposition. I don't mind a little bit here and there, but I really hate it when everything is explained, straight up. Do I really need to know how your complicated magic system works? Do I really need to know the long history of this old kingdom? Do I really, seriously, need to hear how the magical lamp your character uses is made?

To me, it deprives the story of depth and complexity. It's good to have a huge, detailed world in your stories, but you don't have to reveal all of it at once. In fact, some of it should be kept secret, or left up to speculation. Speculating is one of my favorite things to do as a reader, and consumer of other media, and I know it's a favorite thing for many, many other people as well. And sometimes, it's kind of cool to just....not know.

That is the story I didn't even know I wanted. And A Wrinkle in Time gave it to me.

What's more, another rare thing that I hardly ever find in any kind of media is a genuine sense of goodness - kindness, love, compassion, empathy. While I can appreciate how excellent the Game of Thrones series is, I am very tired of that kind of thing. I get enough of that kind of thing in...well, reality.

Don't get me wrong, I hate perfectly clean, scrubbed-up schmaltz. It leaves a really bad taste in my mouth, even more so than darker media does. But there's a difference between emotionally manipulative schmaltz and truly good-hearted, loving media.

The characters in A Wrinkle in Time are not perfect. Far, FAR from it. But it's their imperfections that makes their goodness so real. If that makes any sense. I dunno, it's 1 am over here and I really should be in bed.

At any rate, I really love this book. Obviously. And when I heard that Disney was going to be doing a movie adaptation of it, I was both really excited and really, really apprehensive. This is not the book's first time at the movie adaptation rodeo. And it did not go well the first time.

hoo boy.

I only saw the first ten minutes of this movie, and it was pretty terrible. I know there are probably people out there who have a lot of nostalgia for this movie and probably really love it, but I am not one of those people. sorry.

BUT when Disney started releasing cast pictures and concept art, and....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4U3TeY2wtM

.....well, I just got really excited.

I'm a sucker for good visuals, I know. I am also a sucker for awesome costumes, and awesome music. Really, all of this marketing was made especially for suckers like me. And obviously it worked because I went ahead and saw the movie.

And now I will actually write what I was meaning to write this whole time, and that is my way-too-detailed thoughts about this movie.

And that is.....well, as I said, I loved it.

And I'm willing to admit that it's not a great movie, at least the way other people want it to be a great movie.

It is definitely very, very flawed. Cringeworthy, in many parts. Really messy. All over the place. Sometimes has surprisingly bad green screen and dumb lines. Critics have been really divided over this movie, and it's not surprising. This is definitely a movie that you actually have to go and see all the way through in order to determine how you feel about it. I know that sounds kind of dumb ("well, duh, that's how you figure out how you feel about anything") but you'd be amazed how quick people are to decide how they feel about something before actually experiencing it. In regards to this movie, I can definitely see why people wouldn't like it. If you're looking at it from a professional critic's point of view, running over all the mechanics and plot and so on, you are going to be disappointed. It is not going to deliver what you want it to deliver. It is going to do its own thing. Even if that thing is a bit embarrassing and makes you want to avoid eye contact with it at parties.

I will admit that I began the movie with that sinking feeling, as the beginning seemed to tumble all over itself establishing the story and characters. It felt sincere, but didn't seem to know where to start.

But, after a while, I started to slowly warm up to it. 

And then there was one part in the movie that I reached where my whole perspective did a very painful 180 and smacked me right in childhood-based insecurities and adult-based loneliness and cynicism. 

And what makes it funny is that it's during a scene that I know most critics are, well, criticizing. Because it is kind of dumb. But there's this one piece of it that turned the whole thing around for me. 

At one point, Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, her friend Calvin, and the mysterious cosmic beings Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which go to visit another mysterious entity known as the Happy Medium. Now, in the book, the Happy Medium is a woman living in a cave (a very comfy one, just so you know) who's (obviously) very cheerful and has a big crystal ball through which she can see the entire universe. Literally. She hates seeing anything sad or upsetting in any way - not because it ruins her good times, but because she feels so deeply for the people experiencing those sad, upsetting things. Her whole point in the book is to show the kids the evil they're up against, while also giving them hope by showing how that evil is being fought and overcome all the time.

And in the movie, playing the Happy Medium we have......Zach Galifianakis. 

.....

hm. 

This was the casting I was the most unexcited about, and while I was surprised with how much I did end up liking him in the movie, it was still an awkward transition. 

In this particular scene, the main characters come to visit in the Happy Medium in his cave of precariously balanced crystals. In order to find what they're looking for, they have to balance on these crystals and allow themselves to....um....find a happy medium. Whatever that means.

Meg, unlike everyone else, is having a lot of trouble finding her balance - both figuratively and literally. She's full of emotional turmoil and uncertainty. Everyone else seems to have it down, with little effort, while she's struggling just to stay upright. And when they have to come together with the Happy Medium in order to conjure up a vision of where Meg's father is, she can't do it. In order to find out where her father is, she has to think about him. And for some reason, she can't bear to think about him.

At this point, Mrs. Which hesitantly explains the true gravity of their situation: they aren't just looking for her father, they are (essentially) trying to recruit him. They are fighting an ancient evil, a darkness that is simply called "the IT" (just "IT" in the books). The IT can overtake whole planets, not through conquering or mass destruction, but through thoughts and feelings. IT spreads it influence one person at a time, through their fears and their anger and all of the worst parts of themselves. IT doesn't need to cause destruction on its own because IT can manipulate people into creating their own destruction. IT, basically, turns people on themselves.

Meg finally sees what she's really up against, and the Happy Medium decides to take her aside and help her conjure up a vision on her own, to find where her father is. While Meg is struggling to balance on these weird crystal things in the cave while also trying to focus on her father, she confesses to the Medium what her hangup with trying to find her father is: what if she doesn't like what she finds out? What if....her father doesn't want to be found?

Now, in this particular incarnation, the Happy Medium is kind of a grump. Or at least, kind of comes off that way. But here, as he helps Meg keep her balance on these weird crystal things, he tells her that it's important for her to search for answers - even if they're not good ones. He also tells her that she is fully capable of finding him. She's just not letting herself do it.

With this encouragement, Meg closes her eyes and manages to conjure up a vision of her father, trapped far away on a planet that has given in to IT. As she comes out of it, seeing the course they have to take, the Medium bends down and clasps her hands, telling her, "Your father would never abandon you. You're too precious."

 For some reason, out of this whole movie where there were certainly more purposefully powerful and beautiful moments, this was the scene I was crying at. Earlier, we had a scene where Space Oprah/Mrs. Which gave Meg a sincere speech about loving herself and not wanting to be anyone else. Why didn't I cry there? Or at the part where Meg and her father are reunited (spoilers, btw)? Or any part involving Space Oprah giving us her sparkly browed wisdom? I don't know. But for some reason, it was this. Freaking. Scene. That got me going. 

The only reason I can figure out for crying at this point was definitely unearthing some not-so-great feelings about myself and my place in the world. I, like far too many people who live, have lived, and will live, struggle with loneliness. I don't feel like a very loveable, interesting or even good person. And I'm not saying that to earn pity points, I'm saying that because it is how I genuinely feel. A lot of the reason I spend most of my time by myself in my apartment doing art is because I can't imagine why anyone would want to spend time with me. It's nobody's fault but mine, and it's a huge, unhealthy distortion that I am struggling to overcome. But it's always there, and I can't ignore it. I'm also very cynical about the world in general - I don't really believe that there are very many genuinely good people out there, and that's another huge (not to mention incredibly unfair) distortion that's more a self-defense mechanism than anything else.

Basically, I don't have faith in humanity, and I don't have faith in myself. 

At the center of it all is a deeply imbedded feeling of isolation. It's a feeling that I've buried underneath years of becoming comfortable with  solitude, with nursing my social anxiety rather than facing it,  with burying myself in books, TV and video games. It's a feeling that will sometimes just suddenly hit me when I'm standing by myself at work, chopping up vegetables for some dressing or salad. It hit me hard in high school when I was eating lunch in the computer lab by myself, as I usually did, and then I looked up and saw a couple of happy-sounding girls walk past the window. I suddenly felt my throat constrict, and I immediately lost my appetite. I couldn't eat anything for the rest of the day. 

It hits me often as I sit at my tablet, trying to figure out how to tell a story, battling my own mind as it tries to think of anything else besides doing art. 

I feel alone. Very, very alone. Completely separate from anyone else. Not special. Not superior. Just separate.

And that's just how it is. The world - the universe - owes you nothing. No one's going to make room for you, so you have to make room for yourself. Etc., etc., etc.

But then, in this moment of this movie, when a borderline divine cosmic being who is billions of years old bends down to tell an unhappy teenage girl from Earth that she is precious..... I don't know. It's a powerful, incredible thought.

Maybe it's really corny. It might even sound really stupid to a critic who's watching it. We live in a very cynical world. And it's always been that way, no matter what people say about the times we live in now. The world is a very dark, unhappy, angry, selfish, greedy, filthy place.

But it's also a beautiful, immense, loving, kind, good place. And there ought to be some room for that, too.

From there, this movie took on a whole new perspective for me. It still had dumb moments, it still made me cringe at times. But I saw it through it a different lense, because of that one moment with top-knotted Zach Galifianakis and a badly green-screened cave. To me, it had become a story not only about a girl trying to find her father, but about the whole universe going out of its way to show this one girl how precious she is.

And I don't know about you, but I think we could do with more of that.

Tears and self-esteem aside, this movie is absolutely gorgeous. Don't let my tales of bad green screen deter you - the amazing visuals far outweigh the bad ones. The directors here obviously decided that, rather than try to do a super faithful shot-by-shot adaptation of the book (which would not have worked, because A Wrinkle in Time is not that kind of book) they would do their own thing, while keeping to the spirit and story of the book. They took a lot of risks, and often deviated from the source material, but I think, overall, it worked. I am so glad they took those risks, and did something completely unexpected and different. I love the presentation, the music, the actors, the story - I love all of it. It may be a mess, but it's a gorgeous, lovely mess.

That being said, I can see a fan of the book seeing it and not liking it for those exact same reasons. And that's perfectly understandable. But I would advise keeping an open mind and letting the movie stand on its own. The book still exists, and will continue to exist. The movie can't ruin that.

One critic remarked that, while he didn't like it, he could see this movie becoming something of a cult classic - maybe becoming this generation's Hook. Although A Wrinkle in Time has already done a lot better than Hook did in theaters, I can see what he means. It's just that kind of movie.