Wrinkle in Time Analysis

A Wrinkle in Time is rather a film for family viewing, recommended from 6 years old, yet brings up such subjects as religion and conformity of the world along the way. The film is a fairy tale about a girl whose father, a physicist, disappears, and she is very worried about this, and then it turns out that, together with her brother and classmate, she goes in search of him in magical worlds. The plot is based on the struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, you should not look only at the shell. An outwardly beautiful planet or person can turn out to be terrible inside, and at first, a repulsive one can become your most faithful and best friend.

The Film and Its Overview

In fact, the initial popularity of the film is not surprising, because many people came to the cinema with small children, because the age restriction is 6 years. This is the main mistake of both Disney and parents because the film was created for teenagers, it touches on quite serious topics. The idea of ​​the film is that the power of love can overcome any darkness, and this is still difficult to explain to very young people. There are also physics presented in the fairy tale as the film is endowed with some primitive physical theories, which will also be incomprehensible to children. And the film even has a scene that looks like a real horror, where the villain even says that he is a good-natured sadist (DuVernay). It is possible to agree that it is too early for children under 10 to watch movies with such components. At the same time, the delivery of such ideas is made with a degree of precaution, providing yet another lesson about the flawed nature of appearances to younger generations.

Teenagers and older will definitely like this film, the same cartoon “Mary and the Witch’s Flower” is not more interesting, but no one criticizes it like that. A Wrinkle in Time is as good as a lot of fairy tales and comics, as good as a lot of horror movies, as good as a lot of action movies and comedies, it is a standard Disney movie and there is nothing terrible about it. The script is written according to the standard scheme when children go on a journey through the universe. The idea is very interesting, it is real science fiction and the only film so far where the term tesseract is mentioned. While the concept is rather complex and might be challenging to understand for children and teenagers, it does stimulate interest in physics due to its bright and overall childish delivery (Bradshaw). The idea of A Wrinkle in Time, both the original book and the movie, is freedom of the mind. The authors evidently attempted to demonstrate the concept of open-mindedness and curiosity to children, as well as the benefits of both.

All the disadvantages lie in weak adventures, few beautiful planets, no beautiful animals, unprecedented plants, and few special effects, and this is the most important thing for kids. The graphics are beautiful and bright, but there are not enough action scenes, and it is also unclear why you need a guy who travels with the heroes if he does nothing. Many critics pointed out that the film largely lacks some of the most significant elements from the book. At the same time, however, Madeleine L’Engle’s book is largely about imagination, open-mindedness, and the power of the mind, making such criticism rather ironic (Bradshaw). Despite not replicating the original story provided in the book, the 2018 adaptation manages to outline the main ideas of the story rather efficiently, serving its purpose of educating the younger generations about some of the most essential concepts of humanity.

Conclusion

Criticism of the film flies from all sides, a lot of units for a children’s film with a budget of 100 million from Disney. Low ratings, all professional critics unanimously vote against. But in fact, the result is a great fairy tale for teenagers, which can compete with ”Harry Potter”. An interesting theory of movement in the universe will appeal to all fans of science fiction, but it is better for very young kids not to turn on such a movie, because it is definitely not 6, but at least 12.

Works Cited

Bradshaw, Peter. ”A Wrinkle in Time Review – Wacky Fantasy Takes Oprah to Infinity and Beyond”. The Guardian, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/22/a-wrinkle-in-time-review-ava-duvernay-reese-witherspoon-oprah-winfrey.

DuVernay, Ava. A Wrinkle in Time. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2018.