The Time Travellers Wife

The other night I went and saw The Time Travellers Wife at the movies. I love the book a lot, and thought it would make for a good film. My housey was equally excited and the boy came along because of the cool prospect of time travel that we told him about.
Well tell me if you think differently.. but I was bitterly dissapointed, and bummed to have to keep saying to hubby, oh in the book it isn't like that, in the book it's so much better. Now, of course the book is better, they almost always are, but seriously, it went SO wrong.
My critisisms in brief:
The Music: Underlying the entire film is an irritatingly pseudo romantic string score. The book has references to GREAT music. Iggy Pop, The Velvet Underground, The 70's - 90's of cool. None to be seen or heard in the film. Bummer. Instead the violins are humming in the background every time the film makers want to convey emotion.
The Script: Dear Lord. Could they make it anymore stagnent?? It almost seemed staged, instead of mimicking life, like a film script should. It made the actors jobs very hard, having to say the most obvious and cliched lines in a heartfelt way. It was clumsy and deliberate, and therefore took a large chunk out of the believeability of the film.
The Acting: Could of been better.
The Cinematography: Seemed to me to be inconsistent, with odd camera angel choices. And the way they did the whole dissapearing thing. Lame. It's an effect that has been used heaps before and was a real opportunity for the director to get creative. But he didn't.
Overall I felt it had been hollywood-ised. And/Or seriously mutilated by some producers down the end of the line. All the cool story lines in the book were cut out and what remained of the story was presented in such a slow and laboured way. I wish they had sped what there was up, and fitted in more of the interesting details of the story. The music, the sex, the fear, the need to run, the moment by the lake, the Gomez & Clare story line, the whole ending of the book when Clare is an old lady...

I give it 4 out of 10. A point each for the cuteness of the kids, the prettyness of the medow, Eric Bana's nice abs and Rachel McAdam's nice bum.

I give the evening itself 9 out of 10. It was so nice to have an evening free to go to the movies with friends, eat silly amounts of snack food, and sip wine after. Yay for a normal life!