A Wrinkle in Time (2018) made me rage quit my own brain

Filming a book is hard. You have to live up to the reader's expectations (which is impossible), the expectations of the studio (they have a known thing people like so it should do well), and the general expectations of your average Joe who doesn't want to waste ten plus dollars. Of course, the best creative things tell the expectations to go to hell. The newest remake of A Wrinkle in Time is not one of the best creative things.

    Meg Murry's scientist dad vanished years ago, leaving his family in a mess. Mom won't talk about him and her younger brother Charles Wallace is the wrong side of precocious, boarding on insufferable asshole. Then some magical assholes come out of the sky and say that if she wishes hard enough, she can save her dad. One weird cabbage monster and a dystopian planet later and the power of love saves everything.

    From the second Meg's bully acted like a heartless psychopath to the last knowing smile on pick-a-character's face, I hated this movie. Hated. Would have thrown actual rotten tomatoes at the screen if I could have. It feels unpleasant and off putting throughout, challenging the audience not with its subject matter but with its very being.

    I could go off on specifics. The camera angles that show super close ups on people seeing amazing things that last twice as long as the amazing things. The acting that is either overeager, smug, bizarre, or just lazy. The tone which ranges from melodrama to… whatever the fuck Reese Witherspoon is doing. Did she actively hate those children? I could go off on all that, but I really needed to fill the rest of this paragraph and move on with my life.

    And you should to. Just read the book.