Time Traveler’s Wife Timeline Change Makes Its Relationship Worse
Warning: Spoilers for The Time Traveler's Wife.
HBO Max's The Time Traveler's Wife makes one small change to the book's timeline that actually reframes its central relationship, making it worse. Adapted by Steven Moffat from Audrey Niffenegger's 2003 novel of the same name, The Time Traveler's Wife follows Henry DeTamble (Theo James), a man who lives with his uncontrollable ability to travel through time. The Time Traveler's Wife tells the story of Henry and Clare (Rose Leslie) as they fall in love, overcoming the barrier of Henry's condition to live an incredibly non-linear love story.
As Henry has no control over his time-traveling power, The Time Traveler's Wife is a love story that follows a very unique timeline. Though the show is generally consistent with Niffenegger's novel, there is one key change that's more significant than it may seem. In the novel, Henry's mother dies when he is five years old (in 1969), and Clare is born two years later (in 1971). However, in the HBO Max series, Henry is eight years old when his mother dies, and Clare is eight years younger than Henry. Though it's a small detail, the change is significant, particularly as writer Steven Moffat enjoys including small but deliberate details, and it seems likely that he chose for the two events to coincide.
Related: Time Traveler’s Wife Proves Moffat’s Biggest Flaw
This actually makes the relationship between Clare and Henry worse. In The Time Traveler's Wife, Henry's mother Annette dies suddenly in a car crash, and the effect this has on him shapes him into the man he becomes. In the book, Clare is shown to be a positive supportive influence without actively guiding Henry, whereas Moffat's timeline change subtly reinforces the idea that she
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