RELEASED NOW...

A WRINKLE IN TIME (PG)

A Wrinkle In Time is certainly not a waste of time for the target audience of peer-pressured teenagers, who are forcefed an airbrushed version of “reality” on social media channels.

Nor is director Ava Duvernay’s picture the emotionally rich call to arms that it earnestly strives to be, hamstrung by gaping plot holes, inconsistent characterisation and a steadfast reliance on swathes of digital effects to propel the narrative towards its syrupy conclusion. Fantastical realms crammed with otherworldly flora and fauna, reminiscent of James Cameron’s megablockbuster Avatar, provide an eye-popping backdrop to a 13-year-old girl’s painful coming of age during a madcap time-travelling quest to locate her missing father.

The pacing is frenetic, in part to distract from loopy logic. The glittering jewel in the film’s wonky tiara is 14-year-old lead actress Storm Reid.

With a deftness beyond her years, she beautifully captures the awkwardness and aching vulnerability of her heroine, who constantly questions whether she possesses the strength to achieve her otherworldly destiny when she is repeatedly driven to tears by barbs from her neighbour Veronica (Rowan Blanchard), queen bee of the popular girls. Gifted student Meg (Reid) has shunned friendship since the disappearance of her father Alex (Chris Pine) four years ago during his ridiculed experiments into space travel.

During a walkabout in the neighbourhood, she and her siblings encounter Meg’s classmate Calvin O’keefe (Levi Miller) followed by three astral seers named Mrs Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), Mrs Who (Mindy Kaling) and Mrs Which (Oprah Winfrey). The three-strong chorus reveals that Meg’s father is alive in another dimension and they need the children’s help to locate Alex before an insidious evil named The It pollutes the universe with hatred, jealousy and self-loathing.