By Michael Scoular (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: November 2, 2011
In his movies, Andrew Niccol has generally shown a good eye for images and the ideas behind them. Showing the healing and harming properties of genetic research in Gattaca and the dark humour mixed with the horror of arms dealing in Lord of War, Niccol has made movies that, while not revolutionary, have attempted to open up a dialogue with an audience about issues not normally portrayed with such a level of understanding in studio pictures. Where the director Niccol has faltered in those movies, Niccol, the screenwriter, has undercut the intelligence of the sights and sounds on the screen with characters that trade mostly in aphorisms, consistently reverting to the cute phraseology that marks a trained screenwriter, rather than someone with an ear for something an actual person might say. However, the beautiful cinematography of Kieslowski director of photography Slawomir Idziak, the haunting melodies of composer Michael Nyman and the composed, fiery performance of Jude Law in Gattaca, as well as similarly effective turns of Amir M. Mokri, Antonio Pinto, and Nicholas Cage in Lord of War were all able to render the problems of the script as a more minor issue.
In his latest feature In Time, there is no outside talent to save Niccol. Using the old screenwriter standby of time limits as an easy route into drama and suspense, Niccol posits a future where increments of time are literally money. This results in a wealth divide between classes that also kills off the underprivileged once their personal bank accounts (displayed as permanent digital wristwatches) are depleted. This gets at a current outcry of the impoverished working class versus the healthy, lazy, bankers at the top, and from the beginning seems to suggest Niccol is again working in a similar vein as his past works, though not with a similar level of intelligence.
Where the perfectly engineered people of Gattaca depicted a plausible and unnerving future, the people of In Time are played as an unintentional joke, with frequent parody-like introductions to Olivia Wilde as a 50-year-old mother and Vincent Kartheiser showing off three look-alike women as his mother, wife, and daughter. Niccol fails to develop the basic story premise as anything more than an amusing idea, frequently using “time” puns rather than taking the next step further. He could have looked at what this concept could potentially mean, similar to the uncomfortably prescient scene in Gattaca where a couple chooses what their genetic child will look and live like. After the first half of story and character introductions, In Time is content to show hero Timberlake drive cars, shoot cops, and run, hoping to beat the lazy tick of the clock. This film shows Niccol at his most compromisingly dumb, taking a science fiction idea and grinding it into teenage action/romance paste.
Additionally, In Time does not even work as a better-than-average example of that genre. Niccol has not proven himself to be an excellent director of actors. Often the best performances in his movies come from veterans that can turn in an effective role regardless of the director, and here he has a cast of the young and TV-trained who have shown they can do better with superior guiding hands (such as Fincher, Egoyan, Weiner). Niccol’s script, again, does them no favours: empty syllables and half-hearted quips rule the day for the male characters, and Amanda Seyfried, in the tradition of the deplorable depictions of women in Niccol’s other works, is a needy, desperate bystander, dragged across the city and told to shut up in moments of crisis.
Justin Timberlake is James Bond, Robin Hood and Clyde Barrow, In Time tries to tell us. The suave introductions, retro convertible, gambling talent, and “steal from the rich to feed the poor” ideals position him as this kind of hero, yet what is this movie actually showing? Kartheiser sends a final monologue JT’s way, telling him that everyone, despite knowing it isn’t possible, wants to be immortal. It’s a flaw people have yet can’t stop denying, stealing – they rob banks – to try and fill the insatiable void. But Timberlake’s character never refutes that, seizing instead on how Kartheiser’s mogul thinks some must suffer and die for a few to thrive. Given the gift of additional time to live by a stranger, Timberlake is left with the plea: “Don’t waste my time.” So he immediately goes to “make them pay,” gambling, stealing a girl, antagonizing the rich and powerful. “You can do a lot in one day” is his hero’s motto, yet based on Niccol’s metaphor of entanglement all he’s really doing for the bulk of the movie is running after the money. Given all the time in the world, all he wants is more. Now that’s a hero for our time.
