A Wrinkle in Time
"It’s only a matter of time until the darkness breeds fear. The fear turns to rage, and the rage leads to violence. Then, there’s a tipping point. We’re in search of warriors who can fight the evil, who can bring hope back."
Mrs. Witch, A Wrinkle in Time, 2018
March 11, 2018
I had one goal for today – go see A Wrinkle in Time. If I got nothing else accomplished, I was going to see that movie. My friend, Amber, had told me after the release of Wonder Woman, that it was important to see films directed by women on the film’s opening weekend. Honestly, it didn’t matter that the film had a female director (Ava DurVernay), I was going to see it anyway because of the leading actresses (Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey and Mindy Kaling). I would see any movie if these women were in it/them, but the fact that all three were in the same movie was just “pudding,” as my friend Leslea used to say.
I haven’t read A Wrinkle in Time – not as a child or as an adult. But, I was going to see the movie. It didn’t matter that the film had gotten “lukewarm” reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave it two stars. Richard Larson writing in Vanity Fair said, “Much of the excitement for A Wrinkle in Time was generated by the fact that DuVernay—the talented director behind Middle of Nowhere and Selma—is the first woman of color to direct a live-action film with a budget exceeding $100 million. What a shame, then, that the end product of that history-making work is such a mess.” Forbes called it, “a well-intentioned disappointment.”
I’m not a film critic. I have no credentials to judge movies, other than whether I like them or not. And, I LOVED this movie. Aramide A. Tinubo, writing for Think, said A Wrinkle in Time isn’t a film for critics. It’s Ava DuVernay’s love letter to black girls.” Maybe it is DuVernay’s “love letter” to black girls, but this film adaptation resonated with me, an “older, white woman” who is still trying to figure out a world that looks different than what I thought it was. What I saw in this movie is an optimistic hope (something I haven’t felt much in the last year) for our country that is in the midst of turmoil (something I have felt acutely since November 9, 2016). In an interview with People magazine, Oprah Winfrey said that when she spoke the words, “The darkness is spreading so fast these days. The only thing faster than light is the darkness,’” she was thinking about all of the protesting going on all over the world. She said she had images in her head of specific violent acts being committed against groups of people.
Kevin Fallon, writing for The Daily Beast, said “This is a film that warns against the evils that surround us every day, and against the kind of complacency that comes when it’s easier to sacrifice our light and become complicit with the darkness. There’s a topicality to that message that shouldn’t need elucidating here, on a website that daily chronicles acts of gun violence, threats of war, forced indignities on citizens, and an institutionalized lack of compassion that’s led to riots, cultural splintering or, worse, ambivalence.” Fallon points to a moment near the end of the film when the Winfrey, Kaling and Witherspoon characters give Meg gift/tools to help her on her journey. Fallon says they are “three ideas that are carry metaphors for this film’s own value, not to mention what we should hope to glean from it moving forward: own your flaws, for they can be your greatest assets; remember to look at the world differently than you’ve been conditioned to; and, no matter what, never abandon each other.”
I couldn’t agree more with that excellent advice/message. And maybe, just maybe, this chaotic period of hate in our country is just “a wrinkle in time.”
#bringinghopeback