Storm Reid as Meg Murry in Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time (photo credit: me, from the 8th row of the movie theater, while the credits were rolling.)

Last night my husband and I joined some friends to watch the new Disney blockbuster adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. It was a much-anticipated moment, not only because of my forthcoming book (A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L’Engle, August 2018), but because I’ve been asked by everyone from Christianity Today to the Washington Post to public radio to weight in on how I think Disney might handle the book’s spiritual themes.

Well, I found out last night. And, to be honest, there were no surprises on that score. Anything I’d want to say was said already–brilliantly, I think–by Tara Isabella Burton over at Vox.

But there was a lot more to the film’s changes than mere abandonment of its source material’s Christian spirituality. A little bit of Oprah goes a long way, and this was a LOT of Oprah (rumors of giants in the land are true, all true). And the strange dialogue changes (Mrs. Whatsit is now the skeptic as to Meg’s powers, rather than Mrs. Who; Calvin comments randomly on Meg’s hair–not once, but twice; and so forth). And the constant bumping our heads against the ceiling of Ava’s interplanetary imagination, as if the genre of sci-fi was an amusement park she regretted being invited to and from which she left early.

And yet, as I’ve given it time to settle, I’ve finally distilled my thoughts down to this:

Ava DuVernay did not make this movie  for you.

She didn’t make it for me, nor for L’Engle junkies, nor even for all the millions of Wrinkle fans that already exist.

Unless you are a girl of color, age 7-14, she did not make it for you.

That cuts out a lot of people. Disney may lose money. But she doesn’t care. Instead, she set out to leverage that budget, that buzz, that opportunity, to give girls of color a female teen protagonist who looks like them.

And she was right. 

If much about the movie may have failed, Storm Reid as Meg did not fail. In fact, Meg became more, not less, than she is in the book–a remarkable achievement, given how beloved a literary heroine she has been for over 50 years. With black Meg as the key, every other change to the story, every seeming non sequitur, every over-the-top Oprah moment, all the costuming and glam, the unconcern with fidelity to the original plot, all of that makes complete sense. This is a celebration, as my friends of color say, of “black girl magic.” Party till the credits, then keep partying. And if people feel left out, they weren’t invited anyway.

So if I find myself feeling proprietary about the original story, or about Madeleine herself, or (especially) Madeleine’s Christian faith, I need to think about who I’m trying to keep it all from. Disney? No. That’s not who “owns” this film. If I must give it up, then by all means let me give it gladly, joyfully, eagerly to all the little girls of color who now see themselves in a story that finally belongs to them, too.

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Sarah Arthur is the author of a dozen books on the intersection of faith and literature, including the forthcoming A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time (Zondervan, August 2018). www.saraharthur.com