A Wrinkle in Time is a 2018 American science fantasy adventure film directed by Ava DuVernay and written by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell, based on Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 novel of the same name.

Produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Whitaker Entertainment, the story follows a young girl and her adoptive younger brother who, with the help of three astral travelers, sets off on a quest to find their missing father.

The film stars Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Levi Miller, Storm Reid, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Peña, Zach Galifianakis, and Chris Pine.

[9][10][11] Thirteen-year-old Meg Murry struggles to adjust at school due to bullying and depression, four years after the disappearance of her father, Alex, a renowned astrophysicist.

Meg discovers her gifted younger brother, Charles Wallace, with an unusual visitor, Mrs. Whatsit, who claims that the tesseract — a method of space travel Alex was studying — is real.

Explaining that they have come to help find Alex, who has transported himself across the universe, the Misses lead Meg, Calvin, and Charles through a tesseract to the distant planet Uriel.

The planet's sentient flowers confirm that Alex visited Uriel, and Mrs. Whatsit transforms into a leaf-like flying creature, carrying the children into the sky.

Happy Medium helps Meg overcome her self-doubt, and they learn that her father tessered to Uriel, then Ixchel, but was trapped on Camazotz.

The Misses insist they regroup on Earth, but Meg's determination to save her father overrides the tesseract, unintentionally redirecting them to Camazotz.

They find themselves in a neighborhood of lookalike homes, children, and mothers; one woman invites them inside, but Meg declines while detecting suspicion.

Following the financial success of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), Disney hired Jeff Stockwell to write the screenplay for Cary Granat and his new Bedrock Studios.

"[22] Irene Monroe of The Cambridge Day expressed her feelings that Ava DuVernay was a superb choice of a director because she was able to highlight and expose the struggles experienced by young African-American girls.

[24] On September 13, 2016, Storm Reid was cast in the lead role of Meg Murry, a young girl traumatized by the disappearance of her scientist father years before.

[26][27] On November 1, 2016, additional cast announcements included Zach Galifianakis as Happy Medium, André Holland as Principal Jenkins, Levi Miller as Calvin, and Deric McCabe as Charles Wallace, along with Bellamy Young, Rowan Blanchard and Will McCormack.

[28][32] During production, DuVernay asked McBride to be as flexible as possible on visual effects sequences to enable her to make changes and incorporate new ideas during shooting.

[38] On February 20, 2018, it was announced that the soundtrack would feature appearances from Sade, Sia, Kehlani, Chloe x Halle, Freestyle Fellowship, DJ Khaled, and Demi Lovato.

[46] In the U.S. and Canada, A Wrinkle in Time was released alongside The Hurricane Heist, Gringo, and The Strangers: Prey at Night, and was projected to gross $30–38 million from 3,980 theaters in its opening weekend.

The website's critical consensus reads: "A Wrinkle in Time is visually gorgeous, big-hearted, and occasionally quite moving; unfortunately, it's also wildly ambitious to a fault, and often less than the sum of its classic parts.

"[54] David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a "C+" and praised what he described as its ambition, saying: "It almost doesn't matter that the movie is too emotionally prescriptive to have any real power, or too high on imagination to leave any room for wonder; DuVernay evinces such faith in who she is and what she's doing that A Wrinkle in Time remains true to itself even when everything on screen reads false.

[56] Mercedes Howze of the New Pittsburgh Courier stated that the visuals were extraordinary and that the film "continues to make lasting impressions on innocent minds to change what it looks like to be a young black woman".

"[58] Conner Schwerdtfeger, former entertainment journalist for CinemaBlend, stated that the movie was "all over the place and underperformed," but that DuVernay deserves some praise for the attempt at filming the seemingly unfilmable.