MOVIE REVIEW: ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’

“The Time Traveler’s Wife” is an effective romance film for the ladies with a patina of science fiction credibility to woo their boyfriends into joining. Of course, that patina doesn’t stand much of a chance against the floodlights of “District 9,” also opening Friday, but this is still a hearty exercise in counterprogramming.

Emphasis on the heart: This is a first-class tear-jerker, so make sure to bring a packet of Kleenex into the theater.

The movie opens on young Henry DeTamble (Alex Farris at 6; Eric Bana for the rest of the film), who’s about to undergo a trauma that will trigger a latent, uncontrollable ability to jump through time. He never knows where or when he’s going, just that he’ll disappear, show up naked somewhere and somewhen else, and scramble to find clothing.

Alienated and alone because of his condition, Henry works at a university as a research librarian: The stacks provide the cover he needs when the sensation of disappearing hits him. One day he runs into Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams), who obviously knows — and loves — Henry, even though he can’t remember ever having met her before.

The trick, of course, is that he hasn’t. At least, not yet. Or, rather, he has, but in her past and his future.

Don’t think too long or hard about the paradoxes; unlike “Timecrimes” or “12 Monkeys,” the time travel here is little more than a MacGuffin used to pull on the audience’s heartstrings. Instead, the focus here is, as the title suggests, on the time traveler’s wife. Although Clare dearly loves Henry, the indignities she has to put up with put a strain on the relationship, not to mention her sanity. Imagine talking to someone only to have him or her vanish into thin air for two weeks, only to see him or her reappear with no explanation why.

A neat little montage encapsulates their first few years together. As Henry flits in and out of her existence she sits around their apartment picking up the pieces, sometimes literally: Since nothing — not clothes, not the dinner plate he’s holding nor the water glass he’s sipping from — goes with Henry on his excursions, there’s a lot of breakage. One wonders how quickly they went through the glassware in their wedding registry.

But broken dishes are no match for broken hearts, and the sequence in which Clare suffers a series of miscarriages possibly caused by Henry’s shaky genetic code was tough to sit through with dry eyes. Then there’s the time that Henry and Clare catch a glimpse of a future version of a dying Henry flashing into and out of their home for a moment: When does it happen? Can they stop it?

This is Mr. Bana’s third feature of the summer (“Star Trek” and “Funny People” being the other two) and easily his finest performance; Miss McAdams, meanwhile, alternates seamlessly between innocent, sultry and sad. The two have undeniable chemistry and succeed in bringing this sweet and sour picture to life.

★★★

TITLE: “The Time Traveler’s Wife”

RATING: PG-13 (thematic elements, brief disturbing images, nudity and sexuality)

CREDITS: Directed by Robert Schwentke, written by Bruce Joel Rubin

RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes

WEB SITE: www.thetimetravelerswifemovie.com

MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS