No problem. I was quite surprised by that decision too - it’s not like that couldn’t be done with simple CGI (or just cutting off Eric Bana’s feet, but some actors just won’t suffer for their art). My friend told me I was morbid for dwelling on this, but it seemed important to me.
Another guy here who loved the book. Just finished it this past Sunday and have recommended it to the wife, who will start it soon. I dislike the terms “chick lit” and “chick flick” myself, feeling that any book or film that is worth reading or seeing is worth reading or seeing by just about anyone. A bit of a generalization, I know, but those terms make me cringe.
Ebert’s review was lukewarm. Perhaps if he had read the book, he would have liked the film better. It’s scheduled to show here in the near future, and we’ll catch it.
Meyer, if you don’t mind spoiling the ending for me, how did they handle the death scene? I’m guessing that if they didn’t bother to cut away his feet then they definitely softened Henry’s death. I remember how much I liked it in the book because of the gruesome imagery and just the way he died was so heavy, I really enjoyed it (after sniffling my way through the last few pages, of course.) I imagine that they changed it a lot in the movie to make it lighter, am I right?
The death scene was pretty similar. There was the brief glimpse of a shot-up Henry when they first moved into the new house, Henry jumps to outside the window to see himself die in everyone’s arms at the Christmas party, then the Christmas party death scene. Everything at that point (other than having feet, of course) was pretty similar. Gruesome, frantic, sad.
Spoiling the very end scene of the book:
[spoiler]They did cut the scene where Henry appears to Claire near the end of her life - which is one of the more memorable scenes from the book for me. I’ve heard rumors that they filmed this ending, but test audiences found it to be too sad. Too bad…
They replaced it with one of the scenes where an older Henry appears in the meadow to see Alba, and Claire runs and sees him for the last time.[/spoiler]
I seem to recall that in the book, he had the vasectomy, but the final pregnancy actually resulted from one of his past selves ((pre-V) coming forward and knocking his wife up.
This always bugged me - he should have remembered that some years past, he came forward and did the deed. I guess I can buy that he wouldn’t have known that the visit resulted in pregnancy, but still.
- There’s little chance he knew what year he lept forward to.
- Henry jumps around all the time. Keeping all of the straight isn’t all that likely.
- Getting a vasectomy still prevents causing any pregnancies going forward. It’s not like young-Henry is constantly banging his wife.
Was it a Christmas party? I kept thinking New Year’s for some reason.
That’s really strange to me, that they’d cut out the final scene of the book. I thought if anything they’d keep it in because it felt a little uplifting after all that sadness, a tad bittersweet but better than just him dying. I guess the other scenes could work too, but I thought that the final scene was very powerful and wrapped the book up extremely well.
Yeah, I missed the scene with 80 year old Claire too - it was sort of bittersweet but very memorable.
The facts of his death were the same as in the book, but I thought there were a couple of significant differences:
- Claire’s Dad (and brother, I think) in the book know that they have shot a man, and never tell anyone about it. It’s sort of a family secret. Also, there is a description of that night, and Claire knows there is some sort of commotion but doesn’t know what it’s about. In the movie they think they have just shot and wounded a deer, because Henry is long gone by the time they get over there. Also, there is a hunting scene earlier, but no evidence that it was the particular hunt in which they shot Henry.
-as already mentioned, in the movie Henry still has his feet and demontrates clearly that he can actually walk. He doesn’t try to get away during the hunting scene, he just looks kind of confused and then gets shot.
If I remember correctly, in the book, Henry literally falls through the path of the shot and is struck, then jumps away again. His feet being gone don’t actually matter in that case, since he never has time to react at all.
ETA: “The sky is blank and I’m falling into the tall dry grass let it be quick and even as I try to be still the crack of the rifle sounds, far away, surely nothing to do with me, but no: I am slammed to the ground.”
What losing his feet does (did for me) is instill the reader with a sense of dread. We know he’s going to die without being able to run away, and he knows it, too.
The final scene with Clare is much more upbeat than the after-death scenes in the book. In the movie, she gets to hold him and talk to him, she still leaves out clothes just in case. It’s like she gets to share in Henry’s experience of getting to see his loved ones after they’ve died. In the book, she never quite reaches him in time, and she knows that he’s coming one last time, and waits for him for her entire life. It’s beautiful, but incredibly tragic.
Thanks for the spoilers about the movie. That’s not a sarcastic thanks, if it sounded like it. It’s not the sort of thing I’d pay to see in the cinema, but maybe when it comes out on DVD or TV.
The quality of the acting is always the most important thing to me in a film. Were the characters believable? I mean that, to me, poor acting always looks like ‘acting,’ but with good actors it really is like they are that character.
At first they didn’t know whether Henry’s condition was genetic, either, did they? His father and mother don’t seem to have had it, certainly.
They didn’t know for certain that was causing the miscarriages, at least at first. I didn’t particularly like Claire or Henry, despite liking the book overall, but it never occurred to me to hold the miscarriages against them. They researched stuff, though they might be OK each time till the last couple, they really wanted kids, etc etc.
Didn’t Henry see himself having a daughter in the future, before she was born, or am I imagining that?
I’m not sure I’d consider the book chick-lit. IME, chick-lit generally has more humour in it, less of a sense of impending tragedy. It’s a romance, certainly, and science fiction without a doubt (just not hard SF), and the quality of the writing makes it proper literary fiction too. The genres are not mutually exclusive.
Hmmm, interesting. I guess I read it long enough ago that I just remembered that sense of dread and forgot the specific details. Thanks for the quote.
Nope. In the book, they find him and actually take him inside (or at least drag him somewhere). That’s why the brother and dad act so strange when he shows up with Claire when they “actually” meet - they’ve seen him before (and had shot him).
The [book] ending not being in the movie: I think another reason they might have cut it is to avoid confusing the audience. “Who’s this old lady? We’ve never met her! Martha, what’s going on?”
Maybe I read it a little differently, but I was under the impression that he fell into whatever spot first, couldn’t really move (due to lack of feet) and whatever rustling about he did led her father and brother to believe that he may have been an animal, leading to the shooting. I thought the “let it be quick” part was a reference in that he knew that this was the night in which he was going to die, he just hoped that he wouldn’t suffer.
You are correct. It was a New Year’s Eve party. New Year’s Eve 2006 leading into 2007.
I’m a bit confused about the death:
I don’t remember the father and brother taking him inside. I, too, thought they shot him because of the rustling and that he disappeared shortly after, staying around just long enough for the two to get a good look at him. But what about Henry waving to Clare? I assume that was another Henry who had transported to the same point. I recall Clare saying Henry was looking at something along with her father and brother, so I assumed he was standing back, and the two did not notice that Henry because they were so intent on the Henry they’d shot. But there was never another mention of the Henry who waved to Clare, if indeed that was a separate Henry.
In that scene, there were two Henrys. Let’s call them Henry1 and Henry2. The Henry that Claire saw was Henry1, the younger one, who came back to time and witnessed his own death of Henry2. Henry1 now knows that this is how he will die and since he is still able to walk (he hasn’t been to the point where he loses his feet yet) he encounters Claire’s dad and brother and (I assume) explains the strange situation to them. This is why when Claire sees the three of them, her brother and father are visually disturbed but Henry waves her away to bed.
One of my favorite books. One thing I always thought interesting - Henry is drawn to places of great significance in his life. In the movie, Clare says he is drawn to the meadow because of her. Or - is Henry drawn to the meadow because he will be shot there? Or is it more weird circular time travel logic - is he drawn to the meadow because of Clare and also gets shot there, or is he drawn to the meadow because he gets shot there and also meets Clare?
I thought the movie was okay - I didn’t think I would like Rachel McAdams as Clare, I always pictured Clare more of a wispy strawberry blonde (more Bryce Dallas Howard) but I thought she did a great job. Some of my favorite plot points were jettisoned to make room (Gomez, Ingrid, the scene with old Clare). The filmmakers also decided to completely gloss over how teen age Clare felt about Henry and how she tried to get him to sleep with her. I would have at least have liked to see her 18th birthday! I guess they decided it was too oogy for audiences.
I came back from the movie and re-read the book, so lovely.
The book is called “The Time Traveller’s Wife”. It is ultimately all about Clare.
That’s a valid interpretation.
The reason I interpreted it as very quick wasn’t because of the “let it be quick” line, but because he starts his sentence with “I’m falling” and ends with “slammed into the ground.” The whole thing is one quick stream of consciousness, and there’s no indication he’s actually touched the ground between his jump and being shot. The whole thing strikes me as occurring very rapidly.
Ah, I could see it going that way too, now.
This is very interesting - it never occured to me that this part was so open to multiple interpretations. I would think the line “even as I try to be still” would indicate that he is at least lying on the ground briefly - I mean you can’t be still while falling through the air, can you?
Man, I need to reread this book.
I guess the one thing we can agree on is that Claire’s father in the book knows that he shot a person and gets a fairly good look at him, because he recognizes him later, so Henry must have stuck around after the shooting for at least a couple of minutes, longer than in the movie.