Josie Andrews Supplemental Post #5 Wrinkle in Time

                                                                  “A Wrinkle in Time”

A big fan of Madeleine L'Engle’s book “A Wrinkle in Time”—my mom used to read these stories to my sister and me when we were little—I was really excited to see this film last week. I was particularly intrigued by Oprah Winfrey’s involvement in the production and performance of this film. And, was really delighted that a young, female director, Ava Duvernay (“Selma”) was selected for this production.  Oprah’s  performance as Ms. Which and Storm Reid’s performance as Meg Murray were outstanding. Yet,  I left the theater deflated by the overall production. I could not figure out what was wrong.  After thinking about it for awhile, I came to the conclusion that a significant change from book to film re: the father’s portrayal and the portrayal of Calvin, Meg’s friend who accompanies Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) and her on their adventure diminished the appeal of the film for me.

While I applaud that the film wanted to create a message of young girl empowerment, the decision to make the father (Chris Pine) someone who willingly abandons his family not once but twice completely destroys what should have been an emotional highpoint in the film—Meg’s reunion with her father. Instead of being emotional, not a single person in the theater (all 16 of us) cried. Heck, I even cried at “Peter Rabbit.” Instead, Meg—who supposedly wants nothing more than to find her father and bring him back home—has a completely flat reunion. Immediately thereafter, the father tells her basically to leave her little brother (and his son) and go home with him. This paints male father figures HORRIBLY in the film. Doesn’t our society have enough of the absent-father problem anyways? Why make the issue of inability to trust a parent something Meg has to deal with not once but twice in the film? By the way, in the book, the father only leaves with Meg because she is dying, promising to return for Charles Wallace.

This brings me to my second major issue with this film—the portrayal of Meg’s thirteen year-old classmate Calvin O’Keefe (Levi Miller), who accompanies her on the adventure and is a “sort of” non-kissing love interest of Meg’s.  In our Readings, we learned that Mulvey’s “male gaze” suggests a hetero-sexualized way of looking that typically empowers men and objectifies women. However, occasionally, men are objectified in films, particularly the Women's Films of the 1940s and 50s, and a male can also become the object of a homoerotic gaze.  

Reminding me of Dr. McPherson’s discussion of the male/female gaze and Rudolph Valentino (as well as our discussion about Cary Grant),  Calvin is portrayed androgynously. He is completely non-threatening and would likely appeal as the object of most  young female audiences.  But, I was surprised by not only how deliberately Duvernay lit Calvin femininely but that he was the only character in the entire film shot this way. He was also the only character photographed looking away—allowing us to gaze without meeting his judgment. The problem is that, because of Calvin's age—thirteen—it actually became uncomfortable to look at him, and I felt as if I was engaged in child porn. I would have felt this way even if she had shot Meg this way. My friend, who is gay, also saw the film and told me he was also uncomfortable with the way the film shot Calvin. 

I have not had this happen at any other film. I know it was intentional, but why? What purpose could this serve?  Was it designed to make Meg more assertive and heroic, someone who does not need any male (father or friend) to defeat the darkness in life? If so, wouldn’t it have been more effective if Calvin was not so feminized as to make it seem as if we are engaged in child sexual voyeurism, and better to just have made her stronger, more courageous, and the fighter she was intellectually and physically in the book.

Rotten Tomato rating 40%. My rating…. A 5 out of 10.