By Tommy Bond, Film Critic
In Time
It’s the not so distant future, and time is money. Actually, time is life, literally. Humans have been genetically altered to stop aging when they reach the age of 25. The catch is that a different biological clock starts ticking at that age, one that glows green beneath your flesh. You’re given one year to live, for free. The rest of your life must be earned.
Justin Timberlake stars as our hero, Will Salas, who lives in Time Zone 12, a lowly district where the cost of living is constantly hiked by those in power. When time is not only the currency, but the essence of living, it is the rich who must ensure that the poor die young so that they may continue to use up the time on themselves, rendering them technically eternal. Will, through a twist of fate, comes in control of 100 years of life, but is accused of murdering the man who gave every second of his life to Will, leaving only enough for him to walk to a bridge and wait for the last second to tick away, shutting down his body once and for all. Will takes hostage the rebel daughter of the world’s richest man, and the chase is on. Will and the girl become something of modern day Robin Hoods, trying to right the wrongs, and give life to the poor who live day to day (again, quite literally). But will the redistribution of power throw the whole system out of balance, lending to the rise of anarchy and chaos? Should the poor stay poor? Andrew Niccol attempts to tackle those questions in his latest sci-fi thriller, In Time, also starring Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy as the chief timekeeper.
Andrew Niccol has brought us such rich sci-fi films as Gattaca, S1m0ne, and The Truman Show. He has a rare gift for envisioning a new world in its entirety, and bringing it to vivid detail on the silver screen, and In Time is no exception. Every nuance of this world has been double-checked so thoroughly in the process of making this film, and it is apparent in its believability, and the horrors that we so quickly believe could be true.
Everything is money. A cup of coffee cost you 3 minutes of your life, while a fine meal could cost you 8 weeks. Working in the factories of Time Zone 12 can earn you enough time to live for another day, but in the posh casinos of Time Zone 4 people gamble with 50 years or more. What’s 50 years when you have over 9000 years on your clock? But when Will finds himself having to go “all in”, the risk is so much greater. He’s literally gambling with his life, and the kind of suspense that this scene evokes makes the stakes of the World Poker Tour seem terribly lame.
Knowing that the rich won’t drive cars or jump out of windows (why risk your life on a petty accident if you’ll live forever?) helps Will escape from his pursuers, and his pursuers know he doesn’t fit in with the time-rich crowd because he runs everywhere, like anyone would if they had grown up in a home where every second counted. It’s details like these that make the world of In Time so rich and enveloping. I had knots in my stomach as I imagined the stress of waking up every day with only hours on your clock, knowing that if you don’t get up and go to work you will fall over dead, just like the countless bodies that litter the streets of Time Zone 12.
Phrases like “quality time”, “I don’t have time to talk”, “Make every second count”, “running out of time” and “don’t waste my time” take on so much more weight in the world of this film. The thought put into the story is painstaking and brilliant, and it makes for a slick, clever film.
What detracts from these brilliant details, however, is the characters and their lame dialogue. At times they seem to be made of card board, and their words carry as much emotion as a pile of dirt. They have their better moments yes, but in a film with a story as sophisticated as this one, the dialogue and characters must be just as clever. They weren’t, and at times it is distracting. Films like Minority Report presented us a world unlike anything we had ever seen before, but kept us intrigued with great characters and smart dialogue. Niccol could take a note from Spielberg on that one.
No explanation is ever given as to how the body stops aging at 25, or why the powers-that-be decided that it was a necessary step in the advancement of civilization in the first place, but it never seems absolutely necessary to the plot to explain these details to us.
This is an original story from Niccol, though, and I think he could elaborate on these details, and continue to develop his characters and the world they live in, to give us a wonderful novel or short story, and perhaps an even better film.
This film is definitely one that will get you thinking, and that will inspire plenty of controversial socio-economical related banter and discussion to get you all the way back to your car in the parking lot, and to occupy your drive home too.
Rated PG-13 for violence, some sexuality and partial nudity, and strong language.
Running Time: 109 Minutes.
Released in theatres: October 28th, 2011.
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