Madeleine L’Engle’s bestselling science-fiction novel A Wrinkle In Time, which was first published in 1962 and laced an old-fashioned children’s adventure with complex notions of space, time and spirituality, was long assumed to be ‘unfilmable’.
Regrettably, Ava DuVernay’s ambitious adaptation does little to undermine that assumption. It is satisfyingly starry, visually stimulating — and a bit of a mess.
The film owes a fair amount of its box-office appeal to the presence of Oprah Winfrey, who plays a benign celestial sorceress, with extravagant hair and glittery lipstick, called Mrs Which. She utters lines that could almost be a rehearsal for the 2020 presidential bid she is said to be considering. ‘If we do not act soon, evil will fall across the universe,’ she declares, solemnly.
