A Wrinkle In Time Shouldn’t Need to Apologize for Being a Kids Movie
This isn’t a review of A Wrinkle In Time. It’s not a perfect film but children will enjoy it and it’s a great movie for young black girls to see themselves in. Currently, the movie has a 43% freshness score on Rotten Tomatoes and one of the central criticisms seems to be that it doesn’t transcend the children’s movie genre or the source material, an exceptionally cerebral children’t book.
A Wrinkle of Time was hyped so hard because Ava Duverney and Storm Reid were expected to represent black excellence for all children’s movies and young black heroines in the same way Black Panther and Wonder Woman had to set the standard for all women and black people in superhero movies. Not only does A Wrinkle in Time have to exceed the standards of the Harry Potter or the Percy Jackson movies, but it also has to meet the standards of Get Out and Black Panther.
Harry Potter, a children’s movie, wasn’t criticized against Lord of the Rings or Star Wars and A Wrinkle in Time shouldn’t have to be held to a higher standard than other children’s movies. It was advertised as children’s movie and never claimed to be anything more . It’s fair to criticize the adapted screenplay or the performances of the child actors but Storm Reid should be held to the same standard as Daniel Radcliffe. The Sorcerers Stone film, for example, was widely criticized for its clunky storytelling and it took several more films for the Daniel Radcliffe to come into his own as an actor. Yet, Harry Potter was still regarded by critics as a would-be classic children’s film.
A Wrinkle in Time was always an ambitious book to adapt into a film and there is a reason it hasn’t been adapted until now. It’s fair to say that maybe it’s just not possible to adapt this weird book into a coherent movie that adults will also enjoy but Ava Duverney should be given some credit for trying such an ambitious project. Black Panther for example was adapted from the comic book source material but Ryan Coogler largely had free reign to tell his own story. When white filmmakers are allowed to turn Peter Rabbit into a slapstick comedy (60% on Rotten Tomatoes by the way) Ava Duverney and Storm Reid should be allowed to tell this story without also having to tell a story for adults as well as children. Some children’s movies are successful at this, Up! or Wall- E for example, but A Wrinkle in Time shouldn’t be expected to transcend its chosen genre to be considered half as good.
A Wrinkle In Time’s greatest roadblock seems to be that it has to follow so closely behind Get Out and Black Panther, two films that had to transcend the horror genre and the superhero genre respectively to receive wide critical acclaim. This year in film has shown what all POCs (Black, Latino, etc) know to be true, that POC filmmakers have to work twice as hard and create virtually flawless work to receive any sort sort of recognition or critical acclaim. Women of color, like Ava Duverney, also know they have to work three times as hard to meet the same standards.
My greatest fear is that all films starring POCs will have to meet the standards of Coco, Black Panther, or Get Out to get any sort of recognition. White people are allowed to have average movies and critics shouldn’t get a free pass to hold all films with a POC director or a POC lead, especially when they are women, to some impossible abstract standard.
Storm Reid’s depiction of Meg will allow young black girls to have their own Harry Potter moment and that should be enough. I’m confident A Wrinkle In Time will be passed down from mother to daughter for generations no matter how many middle aged, white, male critics didn’t like it.
