The Child in Time

Based on Ian McEwan’s novel, The Child in Time details a married couple’s (Benedict Cumberbatch’s Stephen and Kelly Macdonald’s Julie) attempts at moving past the kidnapping/disappearance of their only daughter. It’s a fine premise that’s utilized to often egregiously full effect by director Julian Farino, as the filmmaker delivers a punishingly deliberate drama that holds the viewer at arms length virtually from beginning to end – which is both surprising and a shame, certainly, given that Farino has elicited very strong work from his two leads. There’s just never a point wherein one is wholeheartedly (or partially) drawn into the protagonists’ sad story, however, and it doesn’t help that scripter Stephen Butchard exacerbates the uninvolving atmosphere by emphasizing subplots that couldn’t possibly be less interesting. (This is especially true of everything concerning a friend of Stephen’s who has regressed into his childlike self.) The somewhat satisfying conclusion is hardly enough to compensate for the tedium of most of what precedes it, ultimately, and one can’t help but label The Child in Time a lackluster adaptation of a rather disappointing McEwan work.

*1/2 out of ****