I don’t remember Mrs. Whatsit in the book being nearly as skeptical of Meg as Reese Witherspoon’s character and I wasn’t thrilled with her constant hurtful asides. In the book, they knew from the start where her father was and the severity of what they were asking of Meg. I didn’t see that in the movie and I thought it undercut the Mrses. somewhat to have them be so easily taken by surprise.
I’d have to double-check, but wasn’t one of the Mrs. Ws in the book mistaken for a homeless woman?
I’m sure it would have been Mrs. Whatsit as that fits with her book characterization. The movie was definitely going for a more regal feel which may be why I had more difficulty with the flippancy. You expect it from someone who looks like she got tangled up in a clothesline along the way.
Never read the book, but the trailer looks like a hot mess.
Madelene L’Engle was a liberal Episcopalian with universalist leanings who was long associated with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, a famously liberal Episcopalian church with universalist leanings, which is enough for fundamentalists to look suspiciously at her. St. John The Divine has long been a bugaboo amongst the conspiracy-minded wing of the religious right. Just do a search on “St. John the Divine” and “satanic” if you want to go down the rabbit hole.
Mentioning Jesus’ name as a warrior of the light as a co-equal with Buddha, much less Einstein, Pasteur and so on, would be seen as ANTI-Christian by a fundamentalist,no matter how many Bible quotes L’Engle slips in. A lot of the imagery, such as the Misseses, the crystal ball-using Happy Medium, and the trippy-dippy scenery of some of the worlds, are seen as New Age-y, which might as well be Satanic.
Neverending Story is probably the best comparison I’ve heard. The movie had a profound impact on me when I was ten. A Wrinkle In Time has a lot of the same qualities: the bizarre encounters, the precociousness child character, the almost painful-to-adults earnestness.
Almost painful? Oh, it was painful. Most of the defenses I’ve heard of this film have been along the lines of “well, try to remember it’s a kids’ movie” and “it’s not for cynics”. Well, I’m an adult and a cynic, and to me this amounted to a series of cheesy motivational posters like “Love Yourself”, “Face Your Fears”, and “Love Conquers All”. I was severely gagging throughout.
And then, as someone mentioned upthread, there’s the woo. OMG, the woo. This was supposed to be about physics?!? Good grief.
I started the book as a kid but couldn’t get into it. But that was more because I found it weird, morose, and offputting. My vague memory of it was such that I never would have expected a movie like this to come out of it. I thought it was a book for intellectual kids. But this movie was anything but intellectual.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The Neverending Story doesn’t get enough credit in my opinion. The movies were bad, but I’m talking about the book.
The first couple of chapters are a barrier overcome, because they’re not very interesting, but it gets steadily better and better. The chapter ‘Perilin, the Night Forest’ took my breath away with its images the first time I read it, and the last half of the book becomes really fascinating as the hero gradually turns into a ‘bad guy’.
Like she needs more vanity projects!
I haven’t seen the movie itself, but the reviews and opinions I have seen have been all over the place. I was a bit surprised to read John Scalzi’s glowing review of the movie.
I see that it has an audience rating of 33% on Rotten Tomatoes.
IMDb user ratings are interesting, a rating of 42% overall, but 28% of viewers have given it 1/10.
On Metacritic, critics rate it 53%, audience 30%.
I think the critics are giving it a higher rating because it checks all the right boxes on race, gender, etc. so they think that people ought to like it.
I think I’ll skip it. 
Check out my Pit thread on that topic.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I loved the book (actually all of the first three in the series), but I did not like the movie much. Camazotz wasn’t creepy enough - the neighbourhood was excellent, but why have the whole part with the woods, or the beach? One thing I liked about the book was that it was described as insidiously creepy. The kids bouncing the ball in unison, until one kid mis-bounces his…? That was so vaguely threatening and I wish they had kept it. I don’t know why Mrs Whatsit became a piece of flying lettuce instead of a Pegasus.
I was disappointed. I wanted to love it.
The bouncing ball scene was cool. I hated it so much I forgot that. Thanks for reminding me.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I thought along the same lines. It’s not bad, it just had some things that didn’t quite work (but nothing that was so bad that it ruined the film). For example, I like the idea of adding more sources to Mrs. Who’s quote library. I didn’t like all of the quotes they added.
I haven’t read the book in decades, which may have helped my perception. I do vaguely remember that in the book, Mrs. Murray did more sciency things… here, they mention that she’s a scientist, but we don’t see here science-ing. I think that was a miss.
Count me with the 'wanted to love it, but…" crowd. What would I change? Oprah has to go, the other 2 witches were OK. the entire soundtrack was heavy-handed as hell. The goddam dog is a Great Dane, for god’s sake, not a Golden. They never explain who Calvin is or what is exceptional about him. Sorry to say, needed a different director.
Other than that…
She’s clearly a theorist in the movie and I will admit, the whole cooking dinner in the lab off the kitchen while doing chemistry was a rather kick-ass mom characterization in the book that I would have liked to see. Perhaps they thought it would be too hard to explain away all of the lab safety violations that would have been.
Don’t know if it was mentioned before but from the very first it was off…the book took place in New England. And I think they fit the movie to the actors selected, not select actors to the roles. I used to read the book to my son and saw it together and at the end of the movie we heard someone clap and both commented that they must not have read the book.
The new setting and Dog breed bothered me too. The book was absolutely charming, the movie just lost that.
I saw it today with my 12 year old daughter, neither of us have read the book.
For me it was a forgettable movie that I could easily have walked out on. I found the strange mix of science and simplistic good vs evil stuff to be jarring. I found it hard to look at the Oprah Winfrey character and see anything other than Oprah Winfrey. Not having read the books I didn’t notice the race changes and didn’t find the races presented to be out of the ordinary (I hadn’t even considered it except it was mentioned up-thread.) I didn’t feel like there was missing backstory but I may well have got the “wrong” backstory compared to the book, it wasn’t in any way “confusing” though.
I give it a 4/10, however I’m interested in reading the book because I often find books to be more nuanced and less preachy than their movie counterparts. I’ve never had a problem with the Narnia books despite being a strong atheist.
My daughter, on the other hand, said she loved it and gave it a 10/10. I was a little surprised and tried to subtly suggest that it is ok not to like a movie we go to together. Having read this thread, I’m more inclined to think her appreciation was genuine, which is good, we went for her benefit, not mine.