So here I am, sitting down in auditorium 4 of the Hopkins theatre yesterday, all prepared to see a movie that I'll give a nice negative review to the following day. After all, it's a romantic drama, and I've certainly been established here as someone who is not exactly a great fan of romantic COMEDIES (or romance itself, for that matter). And nothing I've seen in the trailers for the film or read about online made me anticipate anything out of the ordinary. However, while the movie has enough faults I can't exactly recommend it without reservation, it turns out to have more going for it than I could have anticipated. Dang it.

In case you didn't already know, this is the story of Claire (Rachel McAdams) and Henry (Eric Bana), who conduct a very unique romance over the course of many years in spite of an extremely unique handicap: Henry is a time traveler. Due to some genetic anomaly, from time to time he simply disappears (literally) and reappears in some other place and time (could be the past, could be the future). He meets people long dead, and travels into the future to points after his own death. Kind of makes it difficult to conduct steady, long-term relationships in the "present" day (whenever that might be), doesn't it? But that doesn't stop Claire and Henry, who, knowing full well the difficulties they face, proceed to get married. As you might guess, completely happily ever after does not quite ensue.

I mean... when your wedding ceremony is interrupted by the groom's sudden disappearance into another time... then resumed minutes later when he pops up again, except that this is an older version of him traveling back from a point in the future... and this sort of thing keeps happening... you have to admit, you face a set of challenges that not exactly every couple winds up going through. It would take a very strong script and characterization, and some really solid performances from the leads, to make all of this come across. And most of the time you get just that.

Rachel McAdams is very appealing and intelligent as Claire, making her definitely not a mere "doormat" in spite of her willingness to knowingly walk into such an impossible relationship. And Eric Bana, with a movie history of some very dark and violent performances, creates an equally appealing and emotionally vulnerable character in Henry... he really makes you understand the emotional dislocation he's going through. And it's a good thing the two leads can do this, because the script doesn't always make it easy for them. The deep feelings they have for each other comes across clearly because of McAdams and Bana, but the screenplay, while giving us strong individuals, doesn't really make us understand what each sees in the other and why they're a couple. And when Claire starts to get a bit short-tempered because of the disruptions caused in her life by Henry's time traveling... something she knew she was going to face going in... she probably would have come across as rather rude if not for McAdams.

But the screenplay does give us a surprisingly imaginative story, taking us places we might not have anticipated, but almost always interesting ones. I genuinely did not realize until the end credits that it was the work of Bruce Joel Rubin, the screenwriter of "Ghost". So this is not the first time he's written a movie about a romance that transcends some seemingly insurmountable problems and continues to exist even when it logically couldn't. However, he appears to have improved as a writer over the course of the 19 years since then (I wasn't the greatest fan of "Ghost"). Of course, he doesn't exactly make it totally believable how Henry time travels simply because of a genetic anomaly, so SOME audience members might have a bit of a problem with that. But as a fan of the series "Heroes", featuring the time traveling Hiro Nakamura, I didn't really have a problem with that. And if you can accept the premise, but nothing else at all out of the realm of possiblity, then it should all flow smoothly.

The film is based on a novel that I haven't read... after all, though time travel stories do appeal to me, this particular one just didn't seem to be something I would care for. I certainly intend to check it out now, since the usual tradition of the book being better than the movie makes me very intrigued... since, as I've stated, the movie is much better than it really has any right to be. If you're a guy who prides himself on not ever watching "chick flicks", all I can say is that it wouldn't hurt you to take a chance on something that isn't a typical "guy" movie. You might find that you're capable of a wider range of emotions than just "wow, that car blew up real good". In fact... scary as this may seem... you might even wind up at the end a little bit touched by some real emotions and the problems of some very decent people. Trust me, you'll survive.