'Time Traveler's Wife' not weepy just sad

It occurred to me about halfway through "The Time Traveler's Wife" that the whole ludicrously silly premise of this chronological jigsaw puzzle would have worked much better as a black comedy.

Or at least a comic indictment of women who fantasize about men who never show up when they're supposed to, constantly disappear when you need them, pop in at the most inopportune moments, and make waiting a full-time occupation for their lovers.

Instead, director Robert Schwentke remains faithful to Audrey Niffenegger's 2004 best-seller by recreating its achingly serious romance between a patient Chicago artist and a Newberry Library clerk with a genetic abnormality that drops him willy-nilly in and out of time periods like a handsome Billy Pilgrim from "Slaughterhouse Five."

Aussie-born Eric Bana plays Henry, whose gene flaw causes him to disappear one moment, then reappear at another time in a different place around Chicago. Because his clothes stay behind, poor naked Henry must find new duds each time he skips through the time-space continuum.

Rachel McAdams plays Clare, daughter of a wealthy Republican hunter and a hopeless romantic who has waited for her dreamboat Henry for a long time. As we discover, Clare was 6 years old when she first meets an older Henry as a naked man hiding in the bushes near her house. She trusts him enough to bring him a blanket.

When Clare re-meets a young Henry in Chicago's Newberry Library, he doesn't know her, because he hasn't yet traveled back in time to meet her as a young child. She, on the other hand, has already met Henry many times and knows him to be the future man of her dreams.

As Clare later says, "This is weird!"

If you are a filmgoer who can't stand illogical plots, or time-travel stories that violate their own internal logic for the sake of schmaltzy endings, avoid "The Time Traveler's Wife."

But if you weep uncontrollably while watching "Somewhere in Time" or "The Lake House" -- both flawed time-shifting romances-- you will probably like former DeKalb screenwriter Bruce Joel Ruben's adaptation of Niffenegger's novel.

Bana and McAdams (star of the weepie "The Notebook") go for broke in their roles and invest their characters with as much intensity and realism as if playing a Chekovian drama.

This goes a long way to grounding a story where two characters start meeting themselves at different times in their lives, and constantly patronize Clare by shutting her out of important information about her loved ones.

"The Time Traveler's Wife" isn't exactly the old-fashioned romance it thinks it is.

Rather, it's a slightly sad, science-fiction metaphor for women who love men who can't commit to relationships, and who think women are less capable of handling life's problems than themselves.

"The Time Traveler's Wife."

Rating: 2 stars

Starring: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams, Arlis Howard, Ron Livingston

Directed by: Robert Schwentke

Other: A Warner Bros. release. Rated PG-13 (nudity, sexual situations). 107 minutes.