‘A Wrinkle in Time’ gives classic big-budget effects, but story suffers from a slow start

Posted on March 16, 2018

By MARK VIOLA

“A Wrinkle in Time,” written by Madeleine L’Engle in 1962, is one of those children’s classics that most people read during their younger years. Despite being a voracious reader as a kid, however, I never read the book, nor its sequels. I only read it years later as an adult, and must admit it didn’t strike me as it did so many others who first encountered the adventures of Meg, Charles Wallace and Clavin when they themselves were children.Thus, I went into Disney’s new big-budget, live-action adaptation — directed by Ava DuVernay (“Selma,” “13th”) — with no emotional connection to the source material and admittedly little recollection of the specific story elements. And, I left the film with a number of the same issues I had upon

reading the book, along with several new ones specific to the adaptation. The film is admittedly a visual wonderland, but sometimes, especially in the first two acts, it feels like everyone involved was a little too proud of what they had created and lost focus of the story at times. I have to wonder if, like with the book, it takes a younger audience to fully appreciate what we have been given. If so, I’m sadly not the right person to say.

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