{"id":15221,"date":"2022-05-11T18:00:17","date_gmt":"2022-05-11T16:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1643086"},"modified":"2022-05-11T18:34:25","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T16:34:25","slug":"the-time-travelers-wife-review-steven-moffats-back-in-time","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/the-time-travelers-wife-review-steven-moffats-back-in-time\/","title":{"rendered":"The Time Traveler\u2019s Wife review: Steven Moffat\u2019s back in Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Huw Fullerton\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Wednesday, 11 May 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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<\/div> 3.0 out of 5 star rating<\/span> <\/span> <\/div> <\/div>

Steven Moffat knows time travel. Steven Moffat knows knockabout, witty romance. So many have approached his new adaptation of 2003 novel The Time Traveler\u2019s Wife<\/a> (sorry for the US spelling, but for consistency\u2019s stake let\u2019s stick with it) as the perfect marriage of his talents, with fans eagerly awaiting his long-gestating take on the material.<\/p>\n

The finished product is slick, funny, clever and sometimes profound \u2013 nothing less than you\u2019d expect from a screenwriter with Moffat\u2019s talents. However, it\u2019s also a series that hits some serious stumbling blocks from its first episode, struggling to balance a complex timeline and plot with some weighty topics. It\u2019s a mixed bag, basically, that you might find yourself liking against your first instincts.<\/p>

From the off, The Time Traveler\u2019s Wife looks like a project tailor-made for Steven Moffat. Not only is it, superficially, a story all about time travel \u2013 something the Scottish screenwriter and producer made great hay out of during his years in charge of BBC sci-fi institution Doctor Who<\/a> \u2013 but it\u2019s also based on source material that Moffat knows intimately.<\/p>\n

In fact, the DNA of Audrey Niffenegger\u2019s hit novel is wound all the way through Moffat\u2019s Doctor Who tenure (a fact he\u2019s admitted). Her book tells a love story out of order \u2013 of a man named Henry (Theo James in this new adaptation) with a rare condition that has him involuntarily time travel to different points in his (or his family members\u2019) lives.<\/p>\n

One day, in his \u201cpresent\u201d he meets a woman called Clare (Rose Leslie) \u2013 but she\u2019s known him her whole life, thanks to visits from his \u201colder\u201d self when she was a child. The rest of the book \u2013 and the series \u2013 puzzles out these meetings, their present-day courtship and their troubled future in a winding, complex timeline that you might need a few graphs to follow.<\/p>\n

Anyone who\u2019s seen Moffat\u2019s work on Doctor Who will instantly recognise the parallels with his character River Song (Alex Kingston), the future wife of the time-travelling Doctor who\u2019s horrified that her love doesn\u2019t recognise her (as in 2008\u2019s Silence in the Library\/Forest of the Dead).<\/p>\n

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Theo James as Henry DeTamble<\/span><\/figcaption> HBO<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

But when watching the show, it\u2019s also clear how much of this story he also cribbed for his Amy Pond\/Eleventh Doctor storyline in 2010, right down to the red-haired little girl waiting for her imaginary friend for years (and 2006\u2019s Girl in the Fireplace, which Niffenegger included in her Time Traveller\u2019s Wife sequel as a nod to the connection).<\/p>\n

In other words, it\u2019s clearly material that Moffat finds compelling to explore, and in this retelling he helps the audience see why. Really, it\u2019s a story about nostalgia, how we change for love \u2013 and how we don\u2019t. It\u2019s about growing up, and wanting what you don\u2019t have. Really, it\u2019s about almost everything except time travel.<\/p>\n

Mainly, though, it\u2019s about Clare and Henry \u2013 all of them. We\u2019re all different people throughout our lives, and in The Time Traveler\u2019s Wife that becomes literal. Clare first experiences Henry as a figure another character calls \u201cGeorge Clooney\u201d or \u201ca catalogue model\u201d \u2013 a slightly salt-and-peppered hunk with a sweet gravitas and firm hand. He plays checkers with her in the woods, and is essentially her childhood crush who stays handsome forever.<\/p>\n

But later she meets his younger self \u2013 a more youthful but selfish figure with long hair \u2013 and struggles to reconcile the two versions. To become the man she fell in love with, he had to meet her. It\u2019s made all the more challenging by the fact that the older version does sometimes still visit, much to the chagrin of his earlier counterpart (at one point he bemoans \u201ccoming in second\u201d to himself).<\/p>\n

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Rose Leslie as Clare Abshire & Theo James as Henry DeTamble<\/span><\/figcaption> HBO<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

If that sounds confusing, you\u2019ve seen nothing yet \u2013 this is a series that jumps in and out of different time periods and stages in character\u2019s lives regularly, often within the same scene. But Moffat\u2019s firm hand keeps things clear, partially by a regular motif of Henry and Clare\u2019s respective ages flowing onto the screen, partially with (slightly dicey) hair and make-up choices that emphasise the differences.<\/p>\n

James and Leslie\u2019s performances also help sell these time-travel changes. Despite some pretty iffy US accents and wigs (you do get used to both) the central duo keep this thing going through their performances, particularly James who has probably the trickiest job playing so many different versions of the same person (though later, Leslie begins to catch up).<\/p>\n

Fundamentally, despite the difficulties of their situation you can see why Henry and Clare stay together. They have chemistry, and shared sensibilities, and a similar sense of humour. They work \u2013 even when everything in the universe is trying to pull them apart.<\/p>\n

But that relationship is also paradoxically where the show struggles. Since the book\u2019s release, many have commented on the slightly unsettling nature of Clare and Henry\u2019s partnership, with the older man essentially \u201cgrooming\u201d a six-year-old girl to become his wife. Moffat tries to tackle this criticism head-on in his adaptation, but with mixed results \u2013 and other more challenging parts of the source material also escape his grasp.<\/p>\n

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Rose Leslie as Clare Abshire<\/span><\/figcaption> HBO<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

The series\u2019 third episode \u2013 one of six made available to press from a total of eight \u2013 tackles some very serious issues, and completely fumbles them. The way the story is presented made me genuinely uncomfortable, and more generally the sexual politics of the show might be too iffy for some audience members to get on board with.<\/p>\n

Other parts of the series also disappoint in other ways. Perhaps drawing from its status as an adaptation, a lot of the dialogue feels overwritten, especially in cloying \u201ctalking head\u201d interviews Clare and Henry have recorded in lieu of the novel\u2019s internal monologues. Episode 1 is particularly tricky to get on board with, though 2 is much better (and 4, featuring a farcical dinner party with two Henries, is a triumph).<\/p>\n

The tricky thing with the Time Traveler\u2019s Wife is that like Henry\u2019s life, it\u2019s a bit all over the place. Some scenes and ideas are full five stars \u2013 others are one or two. I enjoyed this show a lot, but I also cringed at it, winced at certain line readings moments before I\u2019d laugh at a brilliant joke. It\u2019s all peaks and troughs, highs and lows, like the turbulent relationship at its heart.<\/p>\n