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Book vs. Movie: A Wrinkle in Time

3/17/2012

21 Comments

 
A Wrinkle in Time cover

Book vs.Movie
A Wrinkle in Time

Author: Madeline L'Engle
Published: 1962

Director: John Kent Harrison
Released: 2003

A Wrinkle in Time DVD cover
This was the first book that ever made me cry.  I can still remember reaching that pivotal scene – on Camazotz, deep in the dark clutches of IT – and being so swept away by Meg’s fear and bravery and love.  I was only eight years old, and since then I’ve reread it again and again.  It’s never lost its impact on me.  
 
When I saw that a movie had been made, I was nervous but hopeful.  A Wrinkle in Time is a complex, intellectual, and philosophical novel.  It was quite famously rejected by many major publishers because its subject matter was believed to be too advanced for a young audience. It’s a book about faith, God, physics, and the fight for good.  And it’s written for children.  I think that just about anyone would have a hard time fully realizing it on film, but I also think that a faithful adaptation of it would be incredible. In a rare interview with Newsweek in 2004, Madeleine L’Engle had this to say about the movie:

NEWSWEEK: So you've seen the movie?
Madeleine L'Engle:
I've glimpsed it.

And did it meet expectations?
Oh, yes. I expected it to be bad, and it is.

And I’m here to tell you that Madeleine L’Engle was absolutely right. (About so many things.  That interview is amazing.)  It took me three sittings to get through this entire movie, because I had to force myself to keep watching it.  When I finally made it through to the end, I had catalogued over a hundred differences – both major and minor.  I feel like I boomeranged from one end of the spectrum (Holes) to the other (this… "film”).  My list is long and frenetic, but I’m going to do my best to put it all together here. I figure I’ll start with the small stuff and end with the stuff that made me want to find the original of this movie and burn it.
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1.  The random, the weird, and the randomly weird.
a)  What better place to start than the book’s famous opening line: “It was a dark and stormy night”?  This may not have been the first book to open with that line, but I’d argue that it’s the best.  The movie, however, opens on a calm and clear night. 
b)  Mrs. Murry’s liverwurst and cheese sandwich (which she eats in the kitchen on that dark and stormy night) becomes a PB&J. 
c) Fortinbras (“Fort”) the Llewellyn setter/greyhound mix becomes Fort the German shepherd. 
d) Mrs. Whatsit gains the ability to transform into a crow, and she can also rearrange t.v. static into her own image and speak through it.  Her famous pink stole?  Nowhere in sight. 
e) The Happy Medium is a man, baby.  He also has a river full of glow worms that feed on laughter and  he loves to watch America's Funniest Home videos on his crystal ball.
f) Aunt Beast looks like the missing link.

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g) In one scene, the actress who plays Meg calls out, "Sandy!  Denneeees!"
I had to shut off the movie right there and take a break.  Every true
Madeleine L'Engle fan knows that "Dennys" is actually pronounced like
"Dennis."
h) It’s dangerous to tesser (a form of dimension-bending space travel) alone in the movie – Mrs. Whatsit urges them to hold hands lest they become damaged – but in the book she says the opposite.  The tesser itself, described by Meg in the book as a sort of unmaking and reforming, becomes a psychedelic CGI river monstrosity. 
i) And speaking of CGI monstrosities, there’s Mrs. Whatsit’s centaur form – a CGI so hideous that the movie poster designers (quite wisely, I think) decided to turn it into a pegasus and pretend it never happened.

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Don't centaurs typically have torsos?
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I don't think I've ever been creeped out this much by a CGI face.
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Smart move.
The Characters
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Meg Murry - Sophisticated Artist Rendering
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In the movie: not even close.
“She looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror and made a horrible face, baring a mouthful of braces.  Automatically she pushed her glasses into position, ran her fingers through her mouse-brown hair, so that it stood wildly on end, and let out a sigh almost as noisy as the wind.”
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Charles Wallace - S.A.R.
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Not bad, not bad.
"He looked very small and vulnerable sitting there alone in the big old-fashioned kitchen, a blond little boy in faded blue Dr. Dentons….”
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Calvin O'Keefe - S.A.R.
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Brown hair? Short? Average? No.
“Tall he certainly was, and skinny.  His bony wrists stuck out of the sleeves of his blue sweater; his worn corduroy trousers were three inches too short.  He had orange hair that needed cutting and the appropriate freckles to go with it.  His eyes were an oddly bright blue.”
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Mrs. Murry - S.A.R.
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The hair? But...okay it's pretty good.
"Mrs. Murry’s flaming red hair, creamy skin, and violet eyes with long dark lashes, seemed even more spectacular in comparison with Meg’s outrageous plainness.”
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Mrs. Whatsit - S.A.R.
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No pink stole!!! Is nothing sacred?
“The age or sex was impossible to tell, for it was completely bundled up in clothes.  Several scarves of assorted colors were tied about the head, and a man’s felt hat perched atop.  A shocking pink stole was knotted about a rough overcoat..."
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Mrs. Who - S.A.R.
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Never looked this much like a flower child.
“…a plump little woman…. She wore enormous spectacles, twice as thick and twice as large as Meg’s….”
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Mrs. Which - S.A.R.
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Looks like she just got off the set of Steel Magnolias.
Rarely comfortable in corporeal form, Mrs. Which often appears as a shimmer in the air.
2.  Meg "Mega" Murry
This girl has been a fictional soul mate of mine for over twenty years.  She’s blunt, impatient, and stubborn.  She doesn’t quite fit in: not with her peers and not even with her own family. “You’re much too straightforward to be able to pretend to be what you aren’t,” says Mrs. Murry, describing a trait of Meg’s that I share.  Meg is smart, but doesn't follow the school's prescribed methods of learning.  In the beginning of the book, she’s been placed in the most remedial section of her class and is in danger of being held back.  The other kids bully her about her odd family, but Meg doesn’t hesitate to fight back.  When an older, larger boy teases her about her "dumb baby brother," she tackles him.  Her “normal kid” brothers Sandy and Dennys admonish her, saying, “Let us do the fighting when it’s necessary.” But Meg doesn’t need anyone to fight her battles for her.  In one of my favorite scenes, Meg goes head to head with the smug school principal, Mr. Jenkins, who insinuates that her father has abandoned the family.  When he tells her to “stop bellowing,” she says, “I’m not ashamed of anything I’m saying.  Are you?” She’s basically my hero.

And then there’s the Meg who lives in this movie. She’s a smarty-pants who shows up one of her teachers for making a mistake.  The bullying is shown, but Meg goes up against a smaller, younger boy and is rescued from the fight by Calvin.  Rescued!  By CALVIN! In the conference scene, Mr. Jenkins comes off as a sympathetic, “just trying to help” type of teacher and Meg plays the unreasonable kid.  She also apparently has a penchant for reciting the periodic table of elements when she’s upset.

3. Charles Wallace
Charles Wallace of the book is a child savant.  He’s four years old and not yet in school.  He doesn’t speak to anyone outside of the family and he seems to have powers of perception beyond those of a normal person.  When Meg asks him if he can read their minds, he says: “I don’t think it’s that.  It’s being able to understand a sort of language, like sometimes if I concentrate very hard I can understand the wind talking with the trees. You tell me, you see, sort of inad-inadvertently.”

In the movie, his extra perception is lamely boiled down to plain ol’ telepathy. His intellect is lamely  packaged and presented with little vignettes of encyclopedia reading and Boggle skillz.  He’s aged by two years and is already in school (and struggling).  The actor who plays him is super cute, but he just doesn’t capture that “old soul” quality that the real Charles Wallace has in spades.  Also in the movie his role in the universe is played up – he’s THE CHOSEN ONE. 

4. The Mrs. W's
This is one of my biggest disappointments.  In the book, these three badass billion-year-old beings appear wise, compassionate, and eternal.  In the movie, I am sorry to say that they are cheesified to the max.  Mrs. Whatsit sounds like a self-help book - "you are angry as well as afraid and THAT IS…GOOOD.”  Mrs. Who has a crazy/trilling voice and moves like a creepy velociraptor, and Mrs. Which is re-cast as the cynical naysayer (which she never was in the book).  Suddenly she hates children and resents their presence.  Suddenly she can't...understand these...complex...human... emotions.  Two of my favorite scenes in the book, where the three W's give Meg, Calvin and Charles "gifts" before they go into battle are almost completely cut out or cheesed beyond all recognition (CHEBARed).

5. Mr. Murry's Disappearance
In the book, Jack Murry has been gone for almost eight years.  He and Mrs. Murry are scientists, and before he went missing they worked together on many projects, including the mysterious tesseract. It is understood by Meg and her mother that he was working for the government, but the agency that he was working for maintains that he’s just away.  Meg fears that he’s never coming back.

In the movie, voice over Meg informs us: “Dad left us, no word, just left,” and we later learn that he's been gone for only one year.  Meg tells Calvin in another scene that they’d hired a private investigator with no result. Mrs. Murry seems to have no idea what the tesseract even is.  She’s shown performing fruitless internet searches of the word.
6. The Romance
In the book, Meg and Calvin have a sort of instant connection (not to be confused with instalove).  There are some wonderful scenes where they open up to each other and form a partnership.  In the movie, there is just one cringey scene after another.  Calvin and Meg make doe eyes at each other, Calvin and Meg stutter-flirt, Calvin tries awkwardly to find a place for his hands on Meg's hip (while they're centaur-ridin'). And then Calvin throws out this little gem to Meg: "There’s no one I’d rather be held hostage with."  Romance isn't dead, people.  It's ironic, because Calvin of the book is gifted with words and diplomacy.  Calvin of the book also kisses Meg at the end, whereas lame Calvin of the movie begs off.
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Isn't this creepy enough without the movie theater?
7.  Camazotz
In the book, Camazotz is a rigidly structured place.  Any deviation from IT's control is punished and corrected.  The children play at the same hour each day and no one is allowed to be different.  In the movie, all of this is true.  But then they went and added a few things: eternal darkness, sand storms, dank cellars with exposed pipes and fluorescent lighting, snakes with glowing eyes, and also...a movie theater.

The encounter with the man with red eyes is also similarly exaggerated:  the complex mental battle that I loved in the book is replaced by a smoking chasm, flying bodies, and mortal peril.

8.  Faith and Religion
And now I finally come to the MAJOR changes.  Yes, all of that from before was just chump change compared to what I have to say now.  But first, I'd like to treat you to another excerpt from the interview with the brilliant Madeleine L'Engle:

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"So to you, faith is not a comfort?
Good heavens, no. It's a challenge: I dare you to believe in God. I dare you to think [our existence] wasn't an accident.
Many people see faith as anti-intellectual.
Then they're not very bright. It takes a lot of intellect to have faith, which is why so many people only have religiosity."

I am not a religious person.  I generally avoid Christian fiction at all costs, and yet I would say that this book undoubtedly fits within that category.  But that doesn't matter, because what Madeleine L'Engle was actually writing about here is faith - faith that just happens to grow within Christian scenery, but that nonetheless is universal.  She shows this so brilliantly - in Mrs. Murry's dogged belief that her husband will come home, in Calvin's calm deference to his "compulsions", and in the Murry family's acceptance of Charles Wallace for who he is.  It's "a willing suspension of disbelief"; it's the acceptance of the idea that "just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist."   Madeleine L'Engle quotes the bible freely, and when the Mrs. W's name famous human fighters of the dark, Jesus is the first name to come up (and then they also mention many others, including Bhudda and Einstein).  And that's okay!  As Meg realizes while on Camazotz, "Alike and equal are not the same thing." 

Needless to say, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) that I love about this aspect of the book is completely destroyed in the movie.  Mrs. Murry is fearful and nervous, going so far as to forbid Meg and Charles from speaking to Mrs. Whatsit.  Calvin's compulsions are explained away.  The movie is pared down to a ridiculous "we're all okay" type lesson with no nuance.  And when it comes time to name famous human fighters?  Jesus is not mentioned.  Every overtly Christian reference is removed in the movie, which strikes me as a very "Camazotz-ian" white-washing of this book.   

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9.  And Now, Finally: The Bitter End
And after that looooong post, I've lost the ability to discuss just how atrocious that ending was.  So instead of organizing my thoughts into complete sentences, I will instead "treat" you to the end of my list:

92) She has a knife?!!
93) And…she can throw knives??
94) Where’s the giant brain?  I was promised a brain.
95) Not so fast, Meg.  Not so fast.
96) PUNCH OF LOVE!! Damn it, even though it was super  cheesified, I still got a little choked up.  Damn it.  And theeeeere’s the giant brain.
97)  It’s as big as a house!
98)  Aaand now they’re freeing everyone.  So lame.
99) AND NOW SHE’S GIVING A SPEECH.  MAKE IT STOP.
100)  OMG NO. NOT THE BOY.  NOOOOOOOOOO
101)  The basketball will cure them all!  It’s a basketball of love!  And the sun is rising!   Huzzah! 
102)  "It was Meg.  She saved us."  Lame.
103)  OH NO THERE’S AN EPILOGUE.  Worst ending line ever.

And as final treat (real one this time), check out this amazing comic from Faith Erin Hicks: a brilliant adaptation, when compared to this movie.

Readventurer C Signature
21 Comments
Sam @ Realm of Fiction link
3/17/2012 12:35:44 am

I can't stop looking at that hideous CGI...thing. Where IS the torso? Centaurs are supposed to have torsos, I'm sure. It looks like a bad cut and paste job. Thank you, Catie - I will be having nightmares tonight. O_O

Reply
Catie (The Readventurer) link
3/17/2012 02:05:59 am

You're...welcome? :) Oh Sam, it's even worse in the movie.

Reply
Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
3/17/2012 01:31:34 am

Catie, your drawing abilities are a big revelation for me.

P.S. It is so horrible, can you even call these... things CGI?

Reply
Catie (The Readventurer) link
3/17/2012 02:08:33 am

I do love to draw! I'm not sure that you can really call it "an ability" though, haha. Good enough for book vs. movie posts, anyway.

I don't know what you call those things. NIGHTMARES, probably.

Reply
Japrit link
3/20/2012 12:58:54 am

It makes me so mad when they completely destroy a favourite book by making it into a movie adaptation! How did you make it through the entire film? knowing me if I'd spotted as many differences as you did, I would have given up way too easily!

Reply
wrinkle treatment link
4/29/2012 03:45:59 pm

Hello

"A Wrinkle in Time" is intellectual and philosophical novel. I read it and like it so much. It was quite famously rejected by many major publishers because its subject matter was believed to be too advanced for a young audience.

Thank you

Reply
Joy
4/9/2013 01:04:30 am

I thought the movie was ok but that flying-centuar-thing.. I screamed when I saw it. It was terrible beyond belief. Afterword, everytime I saw it I looked away.

You pointed out things in the movie that made me cringe and now I know why. It didn't belong and they made it into another cliche sappy movie instead of turning it into something great. Usually movies take certain parts out and do time skips but this was so off.

Reply
Rarity link
6/1/2013 01:52:01 am

Every now couldn't tell you why but suddenly I get the giggles. Siply got laugh or I'm going to bust suddenly I get the giggles. Tee tee you should try it every thing is a riot

Reply
Alex
11/9/2014 10:22:34 pm

I was wondering if i can use some of this for an essay I am writing.
I love the book but not the movie. I have not seen or read the book in a while because it was my teacher an I need to turn it in tomorrow!PLEASE write back

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Alex
11/9/2014 10:33:14 pm

I thank you review was the best one I have seen you have so much detail to the review

Reply
a random person
12/2/2014 07:19:26 am

Did you even realize how young Mrs. Who is in the movie? I mean, seriously, how young could they make her! The book says she has the form of an old woman!

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Nicholas link
12/7/2014 02:15:13 am

what things are the same from the book and movie??

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Malia link
6/2/2015 01:57:24 am

um... did the happy medium creep anyone else out? I mean... just...wow.

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Raegan
10/19/2015 03:07:11 pm

this book is so good and the movie isn't bad but I'm still really really sad that calvin did not kiss meg he didn't the book what he did it in the movie I really wish he did in the movie why did you people leave that out!!!? :-)

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COOL
4/5/2016 06:54:39 pm

IDK

Reply
matt link
11/29/2016 08:03:56 pm

cool!!!!

Reply
random
5/22/2017 04:16:24 pm

i hate this it is not helpful

Reply
Stella
3/6/2018 02:30:13 pm

HEY thank you so much for making this omg it helped with my essay a ton! I want to know what you think of the new A Wrinkle In Time movie when it comes out haha

Reply
Janie
3/13/2018 08:58:41 am

Thank YOU.
In elementary school (1963) my teacher read aloud from WinT after lunch recess every day. Captivated, I couldn'T bear to miss school or be late from lunch. It has stayed with me into adulthood. Now 55+ years later, I couldn't imagine a movie that could replicate the daily suspense the book reading gave me.
Now I know it would break my heart to experience the epic fail of the film you described.
It also breaks my heart that modern school kids will be denied the joyful experience of READING w/o knowing the ending-- until it IS the end (of the page turner).
Thank you, again.
Your article brought back the goodness I experienced as a child learning the power of stories well-written.

Reply
Mary Johnson link
3/28/2018 01:36:40 pm

Love the review, Catie! Was checking it out again after having seen the most recent movie. Now I'm wondering what you'll make of that, if you've seen it?

I do definitely think the original movie weakened the story. It started well (I actually thought it was smart how they combined the beginnings of A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door--Calvin's brother does attack Charles in that book. And I liked that they included the conversation between Meg and her dad where she says, "I don't want him to grow up to be dumb like me.") But the ending was more than a little ridiculous, and it seems impossible for filmmakers to get the Mrs. W right.

A few quibbles:
Why does everyone think Charles Wallace is four? He's five! it says so right on the pages.
Also, how can Mr. Murry have been gone for eight years? In the book, it's been almost a year since the family last heard from him.

But I'd love to know what you made of the new film if you've seen it. I actually think this older film, weak though it is, may be truer to the books.

Reply
Michigan Adults link
3/2/2021 09:31:28 am

Nicce blog you have

Reply



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