The Time Traveler's Wife (PG-13, 1:46) — SF, 2nd string, original, OSIT romantics<br /><br />This is the movie that Benjamin Button aspired to be. It's the tale of an unusual man, a man who does not experience time the way everybody else does, and of the woman who loves him anyway. Unlike Button, their sheer humanity and love of life make us actually care. Clearly SF, The Time Traveler's Wife has none of the superficiality of character all too common to the genre; indeed, it's as sincere and genuine a love story as you'll ever find in the movies.<br /><br />The "time traveler" is not the unnamed Edwardian Era protagonist of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine. In fact, this one has a name — Henry DeTamble — and he lives in some vaguely contemporary time period. As the movie opens, we seem him at age 6, happily singing "Jingle Bells" while riding in a car driven by his mother thru a driving rainstorm. Their car gets clipped, Henry gets banged up a bit, and the shock triggers his 1st time jump. Mere seconds later, he returns to the side of the road and watches horrified as his mother, frantically twisting around to search the back seat for her suddenly missing son, fails to see the big truck bearing down on her. And moments after that, his future self (Eric Bana) arrives to assure him that things will get better.<br /><br />It is left to the viewer to imagine how Henry must have felt about his own role in his mother's death. We learn that he doesn't have much control over when he will dematerialize, except that it often seems to be triggered by stress or excitement, so we can imagine the effect this would have on his love life. And he's sometimes gone for weeks at a time with no believable excuse, so this gives us a clue about his job security.<br /><br />Thus it's no surprise that he's a bit of a mess when, working his Chicago job as a research librarian, he's approached by Clare Abshire, a woman he's never seen before, who professes that she's been in love with him for decades — and that it's been mutual. How messed up is he? Well, he's standing there with Rachel McAdams — OMG! Rachel McAdams!! — aiming that beautiful smile and those big eyes right at him, and he's trying to find excuses to back away. Fortunately for him and the story, she manages to overcome his hesitation.<br /><br />We learn a very few things about time traveling. Henry can travel to times outside of his own lifetime, but most often he shows up at times and places that occur on his own personal lifeline thru the 4-dimensional space-time monobloc. It's only his body that makes the trip, which means that usually his 1st task on arrival is finding clothes. There's apparently a genetic (not mechanical or quantum) basis for his ability (or affliction), and this leads him to seek aid from Dr. David Kendrick. In a moment reminiscent of transparent aluminum, Henry informs Dr. Kendrick that future scientists will know him as the inventor of the phrase "chrono displacement"; the few other paradoxes are equally subtle.<br /><br />But the movie isn't so much about time travel as it is about Henry and Clare's profound and enduring love for each other under trying circumstances. Not since Christopher Reeve pined away forlornly for Jane Seymour in Somewhere in Time (1980, haunting theme by John Barry) has this theme been done so well in SF.<br /><br />Henry, Clare, and their star-crossed relationship take up most of the screen time. But, like a diamond set off by smaller jewels, McAdams and Bana are surrounded by exquisite little gems from the supporting performers, notably Brooklynn Proulx as young Clare and the McCann sisters, Hailey and Tatum, as their dotter Alba at ages 10 and 5.<br /><br />No film is perfect, and this one isn't either, but I have to single out one niggling detail that kept distracting me thruout this movie and most other ones that Eric Bana has appeared in. It's this: Somebody should introduce the guy to either a razor or the concept of a beard. I don't care how devoted Rachel McAdams is to you, if you look like you're always coming off a perpetual hangover, it's gonna wear off.