DIRECTOR:
Ava DuVernay LEAD CAST: Oprah Winfrey,
Reese Witherspoon & Storm Reid
Technical assessment: 4
Moral assessment: 4
CINEMA rating: VA
MTRCB rating: GP
Teenagre
Meg Murry (Storm Reid) and her younger brother Charles Wallace Murry (Deric
McCabe) cannot accept the sudden disappearance of their physicist father Dr.
Alex Murry (Chris Pine). This somehow
affects the personality of Meg who is full of insecurities and always wishes to
be like others. Meantime the family believes that the father has been led to
another world while experimenting on astrophysics in his lab, and therefore
must be rescued. One night, a stranger
Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) comes to the Murry house and talks to Charles
Wallace about space travels. In time a
second stranger arrives, Mrs. Who (Mindy
Kaling) who speaks in quotes about tesseract and suggests the possibilities of
finding their missing father. Soon a
third stranger comes into the scene—the gigantic Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey).
The three strangers confess their identity as empowered astral travelers and
become instrumental in solving the mystery behind their missing father. Meg is determined to take all the risks that
includes endangering the life of her brother to be able to rescue and bring Alex back to complete
their family.
A
Wrinkle In Time features an interesting subject of astral travel and the
transformation of an insecure teenage girl into a strong-willed person who
subjects herself to many risks for a mission to reunite all members of the
family. Plot development is marked by build up of suspense without necessarily
introducing the characters such as the three women strangers, those in the
different planets, and even those in the school setting. Nevertheless, the
director succeeds in his treatment of combining the personal and family crisis
of Meg’s character with the suspense and adventure of her encounters with
beings from other dimensions. Acting portrayal is good especially Reid. The
cinematography has been creative and cohesively helpful in the flow of the
story. The technology of virtual reality that has been rampantly used in
contemporary films impressively works best in this movie to the delight of the
viewers. Overall, A Wrinkle in Time
presents a suspense and adventure film genre with more meaning and
sincerity in resolving conflicts personally, in the family, and in society.
How
can you appreciate others if you do not appreciate yourself? And when do we start accepting our individual
uniqueness and value as a person? The character of Meg initially revolves
around this personal issue and almost pulls her to the lowest point of hating
herself. She is envious of others persons’ physical attributes and abilities.
She wants to be someone else and not the being that is herself. In reality we can never be what we are not.
Likewise acceptance of oneself is the key to overcome this disbelief. Meg does
not keep this personal struggle to her mother which is commendable especially
at this digital age when most young people opt to open up in social media and
the parents seem to be the last to know. The film carries out the sub theme of
physics as a branch of science that may be informative to young viewers. Overall the film is full of positive messages
that may be good reference for similar undertakings. (IBD)
