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miladygreyToday started off excitingly when Yeats generously offered to head downstairs first and make the coffee, then got distracted by fighting cats and forgot to put the pot under the percolator before hitting the start button. On the plus side, our kitchen floor is now sparkly-clean, and the house smells pleasantly of pumpkin spice coffee!
Last night while Yeats was writing, I discovered to my glee that "A Wrinkle in Time" was on Netflix, and sat down to watch it, glancing periodically at my copy of the book, which is in sidelong sightline of the sofa. And I have thoughts, some critical, some affectionate.
Storm Reid (Meg) is perfect, 100% perfect. All that grief and anger and intelligence, all the faults that save her, all the love she has been given and can give back. I love her.
I was honestly angry at the portrayal of Mrs. Whatsit. She is the youngest of the three Mrs. (she says so in the book), but that doesn't mean she should be childish. And that's what she was; Reese Witherspoon was going for childlike whimsy, but made her childish, shallow, and occasionally spiteful. Her constant needling and vocal disbelief in Meg had me bristling. I also have no idea why she had a crush on the Happy Medium, that didn't add anything to the character at all, and why is she trying to compliment his beard when there's a Darkness spreading that needs to be beaten back?
Sidenote regarding Mrs. Whatsit, the...manta-ray-leaf-thing she turned into on Uriel did nothing for me, but then, they wouldn't have gotten the rainbow-winged-centaur-creature right either. Uriel was always going to be one of the things that would never have been as good as the book helped me imagine.
The young man playing Calvin is going to be unspeakably handsome in a few years. He did a really good job--although, after Charles Wallace's comments about needing a diplomat, he didn't do much. He never tried to talk Charles Wallace out of IT's brainwashing, he didn't get the dialogue with Mr. Dr. Murry on Ixchel, he failed all his Sense Motive checks on Camazotz, he didn't talk about his family in detail with Meg. I did enjoy his friendship with Mrs. Who. And thankfully, Ava DuVernay remembered that these children are like 13 at most, and also need to go rescue Meg's dad from a creeping evil, and didn't force a kiss or anything awkwardly romantic. (They're totally getting married in several years, though.)
Charles Wallace was always going to be questionable. His genius-level intellect was more of an informed attribute; we never saw any evidence of it other than a few big words, him drawing in his portfolio, and his apparent ability to tesser with immediate ease. His arrogance was definitely there, though, that which tempts him into communion with IT. His love for Meg (and hers for him) was also visible, and that's vitally important in a story where love is what saves and redeems.
I'm fine with Oprah as Mrs. Which; she is another one of those things that wasn't going to translate off the page as written, and the most important part of her--her calm, unwavering support of Meg--was always present. Mindy Kaling was criminally underused as Mrs. Who; she had so many good quotes in the book, and they gave her almost nothing in the film (the "Hamilton" quote at the end was great, though!). I remember looking up so many of her quotes after reading the book, and picking up new knowledge about new people.
I am absolutely here for Hot Befuddled Scientist Dad Chris Pine. When Meg found him, and they both were crying, and he was slowly realizing that she was not a dream/hallucination/temptation sent by IT, I almost got teary myself. I am also here for Determined Scientist Mom Gugu Mbatha-Raw. I am annoyed that they cut Mrs. Dr. Murry talking to Meg about tessering, and a lot of the dialogue between Meg and her mom. I am extremely annoyed that they cut the entire Ixchel sequence. I understand on a basic filmwatcher level that Ixchel would have been a filmic dead zone (Meg conscious but frozen, a long heard-but-unseen dialogue between Mr. Dr. Murry and Calvin, the greyness of Ixchel and the pure alienness of the Beasts), but I always loved those chapters, and Meg's growth as a character as she realizes her father is as human and fallible as she is. I wish we could have had more screen time for both Pine and Mbatha-Raw.
I know there was a lot of kerfuffle (always has been) about the "explicitly Christian" and/or "preachy" elements of the book. Looking back, I can count them on one hand. Jesus is named as one of those who stand against the darkness, and mentioned in the same breath as Buddha, Gandhi, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Euclid and Madame Curie. Mrs. Who quotes the Bible twice, the Book of John on the above-mentioned page, and First Corinthians near the end of the book as Meg prepares to go back to get Charles Wallace. That's it. Those examples were excised. Aside from Mrs. Who quoting Buddha once, anything even vaguely religious/spiritual was excised. There was a lot of dialogue about "warriors of the light", a lot of references to the spread of darkness, and it was all very...well, it was not great dialogue. It was beautifully rendered visually, especially the sequence where Meg sees the Darkness affecting people she knows, with the implication that part of the reason Mr. Jenkins and her mother were so unsympathetic was that the Darkness was affecting them as well as her. But (I realize I'm saying this a lot) what was explained beautifully in the book, via L'Engle's lovely writing, comes across as trite.
It was not a bad movie, and I fully plan to watch it with my nieces and nephews once they're old enough. I just...I have loved A Wrinkle in Time devotedly since I first read it when I was ten. Every part of the story is embedded in my brain. No film will ever compare to the first time I saw Uriel in my mind's eye, or listened to Calvin quoting Shakespeare at Charles Wallace, or (with Meg) hugged her father for the first time in years.
Reading Log: Ring of Swords by Eleanor Arneson; The Governess Game by Tessa Dare; The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth; Falls the Shadow by Stefanie Gaither; A Sterkarm Kiss by Susan Price
Last night while Yeats was writing, I discovered to my glee that "A Wrinkle in Time" was on Netflix, and sat down to watch it, glancing periodically at my copy of the book, which is in sidelong sightline of the sofa. And I have thoughts, some critical, some affectionate.
Storm Reid (Meg) is perfect, 100% perfect. All that grief and anger and intelligence, all the faults that save her, all the love she has been given and can give back. I love her.
I was honestly angry at the portrayal of Mrs. Whatsit. She is the youngest of the three Mrs. (she says so in the book), but that doesn't mean she should be childish. And that's what she was; Reese Witherspoon was going for childlike whimsy, but made her childish, shallow, and occasionally spiteful. Her constant needling and vocal disbelief in Meg had me bristling. I also have no idea why she had a crush on the Happy Medium, that didn't add anything to the character at all, and why is she trying to compliment his beard when there's a Darkness spreading that needs to be beaten back?
Sidenote regarding Mrs. Whatsit, the...manta-ray-leaf-thing she turned into on Uriel did nothing for me, but then, they wouldn't have gotten the rainbow-winged-centaur-creature right either. Uriel was always going to be one of the things that would never have been as good as the book helped me imagine.
The young man playing Calvin is going to be unspeakably handsome in a few years. He did a really good job--although, after Charles Wallace's comments about needing a diplomat, he didn't do much. He never tried to talk Charles Wallace out of IT's brainwashing, he didn't get the dialogue with Mr. Dr. Murry on Ixchel, he failed all his Sense Motive checks on Camazotz, he didn't talk about his family in detail with Meg. I did enjoy his friendship with Mrs. Who. And thankfully, Ava DuVernay remembered that these children are like 13 at most, and also need to go rescue Meg's dad from a creeping evil, and didn't force a kiss or anything awkwardly romantic. (They're totally getting married in several years, though.)
Charles Wallace was always going to be questionable. His genius-level intellect was more of an informed attribute; we never saw any evidence of it other than a few big words, him drawing in his portfolio, and his apparent ability to tesser with immediate ease. His arrogance was definitely there, though, that which tempts him into communion with IT. His love for Meg (and hers for him) was also visible, and that's vitally important in a story where love is what saves and redeems.
I'm fine with Oprah as Mrs. Which; she is another one of those things that wasn't going to translate off the page as written, and the most important part of her--her calm, unwavering support of Meg--was always present. Mindy Kaling was criminally underused as Mrs. Who; she had so many good quotes in the book, and they gave her almost nothing in the film (the "Hamilton" quote at the end was great, though!). I remember looking up so many of her quotes after reading the book, and picking up new knowledge about new people.
I am absolutely here for Hot Befuddled Scientist Dad Chris Pine. When Meg found him, and they both were crying, and he was slowly realizing that she was not a dream/hallucination/temptation sent by IT, I almost got teary myself. I am also here for Determined Scientist Mom Gugu Mbatha-Raw. I am annoyed that they cut Mrs. Dr. Murry talking to Meg about tessering, and a lot of the dialogue between Meg and her mom. I am extremely annoyed that they cut the entire Ixchel sequence. I understand on a basic filmwatcher level that Ixchel would have been a filmic dead zone (Meg conscious but frozen, a long heard-but-unseen dialogue between Mr. Dr. Murry and Calvin, the greyness of Ixchel and the pure alienness of the Beasts), but I always loved those chapters, and Meg's growth as a character as she realizes her father is as human and fallible as she is. I wish we could have had more screen time for both Pine and Mbatha-Raw.
I know there was a lot of kerfuffle (always has been) about the "explicitly Christian" and/or "preachy" elements of the book. Looking back, I can count them on one hand. Jesus is named as one of those who stand against the darkness, and mentioned in the same breath as Buddha, Gandhi, Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Euclid and Madame Curie. Mrs. Who quotes the Bible twice, the Book of John on the above-mentioned page, and First Corinthians near the end of the book as Meg prepares to go back to get Charles Wallace. That's it. Those examples were excised. Aside from Mrs. Who quoting Buddha once, anything even vaguely religious/spiritual was excised. There was a lot of dialogue about "warriors of the light", a lot of references to the spread of darkness, and it was all very...well, it was not great dialogue. It was beautifully rendered visually, especially the sequence where Meg sees the Darkness affecting people she knows, with the implication that part of the reason Mr. Jenkins and her mother were so unsympathetic was that the Darkness was affecting them as well as her. But (I realize I'm saying this a lot) what was explained beautifully in the book, via L'Engle's lovely writing, comes across as trite.
It was not a bad movie, and I fully plan to watch it with my nieces and nephews once they're old enough. I just...I have loved A Wrinkle in Time devotedly since I first read it when I was ten. Every part of the story is embedded in my brain. No film will ever compare to the first time I saw Uriel in my mind's eye, or listened to Calvin quoting Shakespeare at Charles Wallace, or (with Meg) hugged her father for the first time in years.
Reading Log: Ring of Swords by Eleanor Arneson; The Governess Game by Tessa Dare; The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth; Falls the Shadow by Stefanie Gaither; A Sterkarm Kiss by Susan Price
