dir. Ava DuVernay
It makes no sense. It just makes no sense. A Wrinkle in Time is based on a children’s book which spawned an entire series, so you have to hope it makes more sense than this inscrutable film. The story follows Meg, a young girl whose scientist father has been missing for four years. Meg, her younger brother and her best friend are soon visited by three magical beings: Mrs Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), who is cloyingly whimsical and can transform into a hideous flying cabbage dragon; Mrs Who (Mindy Kaling), who speaks in quotations from other people at the height of her powers but resorts to normal speech when she is weak, but then also uses normal speech at times when she’s strong again; and Mrs Which, who is Oprah Winfrey but giant. There’s a lot of incredibly vague talk about Meg’s father being lost “in the universe”, so our young heroes are transported from world to world in their quest to find him. The fantasy worlds are disappointingly uninventive – one is a just a big meadow, while another is just Stepford – and the CGI is pretty poor overall (see the aforementioned hideous flying cabbage dragon). The conflict between good and evil is extremely difficult to understand, and it’s hard to grasp what Meg is really fighting for at any given moment. It’s a pretty idiotic movie which obviously banks on children being easily distracted by bright colours and a hero complex. Unfortunately, it’s highly unlikely A Wrinkle in Time captivates many people at all, young or old.
BMDb 