THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE:The Movie Versus the Book

The first week of August I read and reviewed the book THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE (http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977767053). Today Keith and I saw the movie.

I enjoyed the movie, for the most part. But I have some comments and criticism. And I try to list them without including spoilers.

• The movie isn't even 2 hours long, so I certainly didn't expect it to have the detail and the number of Henry's time travel episodes contained in such a long book. Of course the movie was abbreviated.
• Some of the episodes that remained in the movie were unnecessarily different from the book. For example, when Henry is seeking Dr. Kendrick's help and Dr. Kendrick doesn't believe him. That part is the same in the movie as in the book. Then Henry predicts something in Dr. Kendrick's future that will convince him to believe Henry. The prediction in the book was far more dramatic and touching; I can't imagine why the movie changed that.
• Because the book was abbreviated for the movie, some characters in the book are missing from the movie.
• The charm of Gomez didn't show well in the movie, and other things that happened with Gomez in the book, which I felt were pretty big deals, weren't in the movie at all.
• Although the movie Henry looked pretty much like I imagined when I read the book, the adult Claire didn't. The book describes her often as a redhead. Six-year-old Claire has red hair in the movie, but adult Claire doesn't.
• Because this is a book/movie of time travel, characters should show age difference between time travel episodes. But I didn't think they did. For example, when Claire and Henry married, the older Henry looked the same as the younger Henry to me. Keith said he saw gray hair on the older Henry. I wish the only difference between me now and me 20 years ago was gray hair at my temples. And the movie showed 18-year-old Claire looking exactly like 34-year-old Claire.
• The movie seemed to assume I had already read the book and knew what it referred to. For example, Henry's father was a concert violinist. The movie doesn't say that but does have Henry's daughter tell him that "gramps" is  teaching her to play the violin.
• I was disappointed that the movie didn't end the way the book did. The movie stopped a couple of chapters sooner than the book did, and the actual end was so touching, I felt gypped when the movie ended.

I wouldn't have understood the movie or liked it if I hadn't read the book. However, although Keith didn't read the book, he said he enjoyed the movie.  But he likes "Star Trek," so I think it was the time travel that appealed to him.