Did you see A Wrinkle in Time? What did you think?

Did you read the book before you saw the movie?

When I first heard that A Wrinkle in Time was in production and was for real, going to become a feature film, I was excited. Sounded like a great idea! I had read the book ages ago, many times, and I own the whole series. Good writing and great storytelling are what I remembered from the books. I decided to reread just to catch up.

Time passes and the movie comes out. Then the reviews come rushing in… I was puzzled by the reviews, people were angry at the casting changes, the lack of overt Christianity and a whole host of other things.

So now that I have seen the movie I feel that I can comment. Transforming a book into a movie always requires change. Something has to go at a bare minimum and in some circumstances; a lot is edited out and replaced by something else. Changing some of the cast – biracial, white, black, changing the creatures and even gender of some characters in the book did not bother me at all. I thought the actor who played Meg did a great job! All of the actors did quite well. They did a solid job creating their characters on screen. No objections here. Calvin did great too, though he is often overlooked. (Just like his character.)

I did object to a few changes from the book but they were not major ones. If you look at A Wrinkle in Time as a stand-alone book, they are fine. However, if you look at the movie as book one in a series… then there may be some issues. In addition, a few things added to create drama, I felt, were unnecessary.

Were these terrible additions? No. Were they helpful additions? No.

Did the costumes, and costume/hair changes of the three Mrs. get a bit much? Yes. Were they terrible? No, a distraction perhaps.

Mrs. Whatsit was different and that was a bit of a rub the wrong way. I did like her character and I understood the changes but “Mrs. Whatsit loves me.” would be out of place in this story. I was a bit bothered by that.

Overall, high marks. My expectations were originally all over the map, high at first, then low from reading the news, then met. I am glad I saw this movie and know for myself.

(And that is a bit about what the movie is about. Be yourself. Own it. Even your faults.)