A Wrinkle in Time recap

Meg Murry, an unhappy misfit, grieves her scientist father, who vanished during a secret experiment. Her gifted little brother Charles Wallace introduces her to three strange beings, Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which, who, with their new friend Calvin O'Keefe, whisk the children across space by folding it, a tesseract. They learn that a growing darkness threatens the universe and that Mr. Murry is held on Camazotz, a planet enslaved to mindless conformity. There they confront the controlling brain called IT; Charles Wallace lets his mind be taken. The children free their father, but escaping, they must leave Charles Wallace behind, and Meg is injured passing through the dark. Nursed back to health on another world by gentle creatures, Meg realizes she alone can save her brother. She returns to Camazotz and defeats IT with the one power it lacks, love, freeing Charles Wallace so the family can return home.

Meg Murry is an unhappy, awkward girl who feels she does not fit in and worries constantly about her scientist father, who disappeared long ago and has not been heard from since. On a wild, stormy night she comes downstairs to find her strange, brilliant little brother Charles Wallace, who seems to know her thoughts, entertaining an odd old woman named Mrs Whatsit, who has taken shelter nearby. Mrs Whatsit unsettles Meg's mother by mentioning something called a tesseract before leaving. The next day Charles Wallace takes Meg to meet Mrs Whatsit's equally peculiar companions, Mrs Who, who speaks mostly in quotations, and, on the way, they meet Calvin O'Keefe, an older schoolboy who feels an immediate, unexplainable sense of belonging with them and joins them.

The three strange women, joined by the shimmering Mrs Which, reveal that they are not human at all but powerful beings who have come to help. They transport Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin across vast distances by tessering, folding space and time so that great gaps can be crossed in an instant, and they explain that the children's father is being held on a faraway planet. They show the children a great dark shadow spreading across the universe, an evil called the Black Thing that swallows worlds, and warn that Earth is partly under its threat. Their journey pauses at other worlds, where the children meet a being called the Happy Medium and see through her crystal ball just how serious the danger is.

The Mrs Ws bring the children to Camazotz, the planet where Mr. Murry is imprisoned, a place fallen entirely under the Black Thing's power. Everything there moves in eerie, identical rhythm, every house and person the same, all individuality crushed. The three guides can go no further and send the children on alone with a few gifts and warnings. In the central control building the children confront the Man with the Red Eyes, who tries to lull them into surrendering their wills to the planet's power. Charles Wallace, sure he can outwit it, deliberately opens his mind to learn more and is taken over, his personality replaced by a cold, controlled voice. Under his guidance the others find Mr. Murry sealed inside a transparent column and manage to free him.

The possessed Charles Wallace leads Meg, Calvin, and their newly freed father to the source of the planet's control: IT, a giant disembodied brain whose steady, hypnotic pulse forces every mind into obedience. The rhythm nearly overwhelms them all, and Meg feels herself being drawn in. Unable to save Charles Wallace and fearing they will all be lost, Mr. Murry seizes Meg and Calvin and tessers them away, escaping IT but being forced to leave Charles Wallace behind, still under its power. Passing through the Black Thing during the escape, Meg is badly hurt, left cold and stiff and briefly unable to move or think clearly. They come down on a nearby planet, safe for the moment but grieved and incomplete.

On the gray planet Ixchel, gentle sightless creatures with soft fur and tentacles take the injured Meg in, and one she calls Aunt Beast nurses her tenderly back to health. When Meg has recovered, the three Mrs Ws appear and tell her a hard truth: she alone can go back to Camazotz to rescue Charles Wallace, because of the special closeness between them, and they can send her with nothing but their love and the knowledge that she has one thing IT does not. Returning to face IT and her controlled brother, Meg realizes that the missing thing is love. By fixing all her love on Charles Wallace and refusing to let go, she breaks IT's grip on him; he returns to himself, and they are tessered safely home to the family garden, reunited with their parents and Calvin as the Mrs Ws say a final farewell.

After Meg is hurt escaping Camazotz, gentle furred creatures on the planet Ixchel nurse her back to health, and one she calls Aunt Beast comforts her. The three Mrs Ws appear and explain that Meg alone must go back for Charles Wallace, because she has a bond with him that no one else shares, and they can give her nothing but their love and one final clue: she possesses something IT does not have. Returning to Camazotz, Meg faces IT and her brother, who is still controlled by the brain's rhythm. She realizes the thing IT cannot feel is love, and by pouring out her fierce love for Charles Wallace she breaks IT's hold on him. He comes back to himself, and the two are caught up and tessered home. They land in the vegetable garden behind their house, reunited with their father, their mother, the twins, and Calvin. The three Mrs Ws appear one last time to say goodbye before hurrying off on further work of their own.