While staying at my stepdaughter's house, I noticed the DVD package of A Wrinkle in Time on the kitchen counter. My granddaughters' other grandmother has a Disney DVD subscription and she'd purchased it for our granddaughters, 10 and 8. As soon as the kids came home from school that afternoon, I asked them if I'd be able to watch the movie before I left for home. We set a day for 2 mornings later.
Of the 3 adults and 2 children that sat down to watch the movie, I was the only one who had previously read the book. The movie was more straightforward and easier to understand than the novel. But as is usually the case, the story just didn't go as deep.
Meg Murray, the main character, is still out to save her father who has gone missing. Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs.... (okay what was the third Mrs. W's name?) are still in the story although not as well developed. Meg's younger brother, Charles Wallace, wasn't the child prodigy he was in the book. There were no twin older brothers. We get none of the back story about Calvin's back story making his involvement in the attempt to find Meg's father a little bit confusing.
The adventures that the trio of Meg, Charles Wallace and Calvin experience are visually quite beautiful. But they lack the emphasis on the evils of other worlds.
What I liked best about the book was watching the transformation of Meg from a girl who feels like she doesn't fit in anywhere to be a girl much more comfortable in her own skin and in her place in both her family and the greater world. That was missing from the moving.
What I liked best about the movie was the importance of family. If you have family, you have it all.
I don't know if I'd recommend the movie or not. But I did really love the cinematic aspects of this adaptation of a popular Newberry Prize winner.
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