Escape del tiempo

I first read "A Wrinkle in Time" when I was seven years old, and since then it has been one of my all time favorite books. I read it several times, though in recent years I hadn't picked it up. When I heard that a TV movie was being made, I was excited. I thought, "Hey, TV, that means that they can do a miniseries or something, get the story right!"

How wrong I was.

The acting, I must admit, was good. If I totally disassociate the movie from the book, it's fine. But the fact is, as an adaptation, the movie really sucked. There's not much of better way to put it. I was watching the movie tonight, for the first (and last) time, and spent the entire time thinking to myself "That didn't happen", or "Why did they change that, of all things!" I started re-reading the book, and tried to keep a list of changes.

When I had filled up a page with writing before hitting page 30, I stopped keeping the list.

Disney did a fine job of movie making in this instance, but again, I have to really forget that the book even exists to much enjoy the plot of the movie.

They had a chance to make something wonderful: The actors were well chosen (even though Mrs. Murray should have had bright red hair, the actress did a fine job), and they did a good job with what they were given. The witches were a bit off from the book descriptions (especially Mrs. Which, who should have been a more stereotypical witch in black robes with a pointy hat), but they were fine actresses, and I could have overlooked it. But it was about when they introduced the man with red eyes that the story took a major turn from the plot of the book. One MAJOR point of contention for me was Mrs. Whatsit's centaur-like form. What in the world was that, anyhow? It was supposed to look like a centaur, but not. And what they did was stick a head on a horse - no human torso, and the proportions were all wrong, and it was not nearly the beautiful creature it was supposed to be. Bah.

Here is my recommendation: if you have read and loved Madeleine L'Engle's books as much as I have, don't watch this movie. If you haven't read the books and plan to, watch the movie beforehand so you aren't as disappointed as I was. If you don't plan to read the books, it's safe. If you've seen the movie and plan to read the books, you are in for a real treat.

I give this 1.5 stars out of 5, for the actors playing the kids, the father, and props to the rest for trying with a screenplay that butchered the story.

I feel bad for them.

A Wrinkle in Time - where do I start? The book, in itself, is one of the most fabulous, imaginative, fantastical stories ever penned. Madeleine L'Engle is a writing genius. The book opened up whole new worlds for me, and taught me (in the forth grade) that it was all right to have imaginings beyond anything ever heard of. Now, close to graduation, I watched this, excited, but prepared to be disappointed. I rarely was. This was a fine production - the child actors quite good, I thought - no gorgeous child actors were cast, and I noticed no huge personality changes. Meg doesn't wear spectacles, and there are other similar changes. The end is a bit altered, but it didn't bother me too much. This is a good adaptaion, but not for L'Engleites. You need to be flexible - one form is a novel, one is a film. A book can be directed toward a small group of people, but a film has to be marketable to everyone. See it if you like fantasy and enjoy Madeleines books.

I didn't like that most of the characters changed a bit I felt that they could have portrayed a little more to the story but did have great acting. I would recommend over the 2018 version but I would strongly recommend reading the book and prefer the book over this.

I too am a big fan of Madeline L'Engle and especially the Murry family time-travel series; so I was both excited and trepidatious to see a film version of this well-known first book in the series, especially since it was produced by Disney (I love Disney, but I don't always love their adaptations of stories that were perfectly fine to me to begin with).

However, I rented it and was mostly pleased -- although Meg, Calvin & Charles didn't exactly fit my picture of them in my head (based on L'Engle's descriptions in the book) the acting was great and they got the "feel" of the characters mostly right (I missed the "fierceness" of Meg from the book and the glasses & braces, but she was still very well portrayed). The scenes from Camazotz are chilling, and gave me the same creepy feeling as I get when I read the book. And the plot stayed generally around the same place as the book, most of the time; it didn't veer as far as Disney's "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" did. Allison Elliot is a great actress (loved her in "The Spitfire Grill") so it was nice to see her as Mrs. Who, pointy hat or not. Most of the scenery really helped me feel a part of the story; as for the look of the characters, I can be open-minded and accept that, like Aunt Beast says, "it's not how things look, but how they are."

However, I just don't understand some of the little changes they made that seem completely unnecessary and really annoyed me as a fan of the books. The biggest one is WHY did they change the names of the Murry parents? I've grown to feel almost a part of this family, so imagine my shock when dedicated father Alex and loving mother Kate suddenly became "Jack" and "Dana"! I'd love to know the reason for this, because it seems pointless. It totally ruined the first 20 minutes of the film for me, because I kept ranting about it until my husband began rolling his eyes. And it didn't make sense to change the breed of Fort (the dog) either; as someone else said, "how hard was it to find a black Lab?" Bigger changes, like replacing most of IT's role with The Man With Red Eyes, make more sense (IT was creepy enough in the book, I did NOT want to see IT on the screen!) but the aforementioned minor character changes ticked me off. I'd love to hear someone from Disney explain the choices they made.

I recommend the film to fans of the book and non-fans alike; but be warned if you cherish the book as much as I do, and try to separate the film from the book and enjoy it for what it is, not what it should be.

The book is so good that at least the opening of this made-for-tv movie will move you, but then, as it diverges more and more from the book, taking out all the religion and love and mathematics and putting in cotton candy cliches, it becomes boring. Still, from comments I've heard, people who have not read the book tend to like it, and if it leads even on child to read A Wrinkle in Time, it will have served its purpose. The most embarrassing change is to make the Happy Medium a clone of Mary Poppins' Uncle Albert (I love to Laugh). Nothing is quite so squirm inducing as characters on the screen laughing hilariously at things that are totally unfunny.