Not Worth Your Time or Money

In Time

** out of ****

Directed by: Andrew Niccol

Starring: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser and Olivia Wilde

Running time: 109 minutes

When 20th Century Fox scheduled their dystopian thriller In Time for theatrical release this October, they probably didn’t realize that their futuristic tale about an uprising against a capitalist regime would have such precedence. As the film plays in thousands of theatres across North America, tens of thousands are camped out not too far from the multiplexes, discussing the same issues that are brought up in the film.

But while In Time may be a zeitgeist-defining film – one that captures the spirit of our times, like last year’s The Social Network and 2009’s Up in the Air – it isn’t necessarily a good one.

It is a flashier if paler version of writer/director Andrew Niccol’s sci-fi debut, the intelligent and thought-provoking Gattaca, which explored how one’s social class could be determined by their DNA. In Niccol's latest dystopia, money has been vanquished as a form of currency and people spend time instead.

After 25 years, humans are genetically engineered to stop aging. From this point on, when they die depends on when their time runs out. At 25, you start with one year of time remaining, and can choose the extent of how to spend your time. Unfortunately, prices are going up: a cup of coffee will set you back four days. To gain time, you need to forget the luxuries and work hard.

Enter factor worker Will Salas (Justin Timberlake), who lives in a dingy ghetto with his mother (Olivia Wilde) and has just a few weeks left on his genetic timeline – a neon green imprint on his left arm tells the audience just how much time Will has left throughout.

One day, Will helps a wealthy man with more than a century left, Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer), evade a gang that steal time by forcing themselves onto others – in one of the film's more far-fetched ideas, time can be transferred between humans by mere touch.

Hamilton explains to Will that although time can be distributed evenly, it is stockpiled for the rich so they can achieve immortality. “For a few to be immortal, many must die,” Hamilton says. Grim and disheartened, Hamilton transfers the rest of his time to Salas before “timing out” and collapsing off a bridge.

While Will has just won a lottery of time, a camera placed near the scene of Hamilton’s death implicates the young man in the millionaire's death. As the police force, called Timekeepers (led by the always reliable Cillian Murphy), pursue Will, our hero makes a run for the richer Time Zones – which are districts that divide their populations up by social status – in hopes of seeking revenge against these immortal few.

In his travels, he meets the slimy time-loaning magnum Phillipe Weis (Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser) and his beautiful, yet rebellious daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), who takes an instant liking to the prole from across a few Time Zones.

Sure, the concept is intriguing and bears much precedence in today’s frustrating economic climate. But as a science-fiction film, however, In Time isn’t entirely convincing.

For instance, let’s examine the idea that people can transfer time between each other through touch. How can this touch determine who is the giver of time and who is the recipient? How can it calculate exactly how much time is given? What happens if people are walking hand in hand (as Will and Sylvia do several times throughout)? Is there a withdrawal here, as well?

Never mind the space and time leaps between the Time Zones, locations that curiously become smaller as the film accelerates to a climax, but the premise feels utterly incomplete. This universe is a very elementary deconstruction of the disparity between rich and poor, and is not examined with the depth that one would expect from the man who wrote The Truman Show.

It doesn’t help that the cast is mostly flat: neither Timberlake nor Seyfried infuse their characters with a lot of grit, while Niccol’s exposition-heavy script offers little backstory to help them out. Sylvia's disobedience toward her father is hardly explored until she transforms into a Robin Hood surrogate later on, deciding to sell the time from her father’s business to the lower classes.

The youthful cast, chosen to suit the film’s genetic code, make the damaged ghettos look more like a Teen Beat cover spread than a postmodern dystopia. Unfortunately, the only ones with any gravitas onscreen are Murphy and Kartheiser, although they are also victims of the thin characterization.

The ideas that In Time presents are simple yet intriguing, but Niccol’s film falters because it spends too much time outlining the convoluted ideas and not enough time making us care for the people it affects. It’s a timely film, but not a very good one.

What Has She Done to Deserve This?

The Skin I Live In

*** out of ****

Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes and Jan Cornet

Running time: 117 minutes

The Skin I Live In, the latest melodramatic thriller from Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar, features a simple story, but also one that is quite hard to stomach.

Although he has been making films since the early 1980s, this is only the second film from the writer/director to be based on a previously written work—which explains why the filmmaker, highly regarded for his complex storytelling, relies on stripped down, straightforward suspense here.

The story is deceptively simple, although the genius lies in how the exposition is revealed. The film freely jumps back and forth between 2006 and 2012, and focuses on Dr. Robert Ledgard (played by Antonio Banderas), a wealthy and renowned surgeon living in Toledo. (Antxón Gómez's production design for Ledgard's glass laboratory and his mansion's exquisite art-deco interiors is terrific.)

Ledgard is hailed by the scientific community for his breakthroughs with face transplants, but shunned when a new artificial skin, Gal, named after his late wife, is discovered to be moulded with animal genomes.

A precise and careful surgeon, Ledgard knows he would be criticized even further if any of his peers stepped inside his isolated mansion. There, he houses a captive, a lady named Vera Cruz (Elena Anaya), who is dressed in only a body stocking and wearing a head bandage.

At times, Vera treats her master coldly, particularly when she confronts the doctor about how he monitors her with a camera (he watches her with an unsettling, voyeuristic gaze that would get Hitchcock’s approval). At other times, she is eager to fall into his arms and submit to him with animalistic desire.

I could delve further into the bizarre relationship between the doctor and his patient, but since the story builds much of its intrigue from a surprising plot development that has been unwittingly spoiled in several publications, I will not.

But this I will have no regrets confessing: the truths that The Skin I Live In uncovers in its final act are creepy and deeply amoral. It exposes two monsters with intense psychological issues

Banderas and Anaya are fascinating to watch, both menacing yet controlled. However, after the central plot twist is revealed, Almodóvar should have pressed a bit harder: as fractured as Banderas is on the inside, the revelation questions some of his character’s motives.

Regardless, Almodóvar is a filmmaker who you can always rely on for three things: splashy colours, a seductive soundtrack and characters with major identity crises. He doesn’t disappoint with his signatures here, although the reds are bloody, the strings ring with suspense (another ode to Hitchcock) and characters work with clothing, masks and other disguises to reiterate the complacency and complexity of human identity.

Adapted from a chilling novel by French writer Thierry Jonquet, The Skin I Live In has a twisted kinkiness that don’t stray very far from some of the writer/director’s more explicit features (see Matador, Bad Education). While it’s far from Almodóvar’s most complex film, his foray into psychological horror - think of it as the equivalent of a Human Centipede soap opera - is one of his boldest and most daring dissections of violence and sexuality yet.

Beer and Boating in Puerto Rico

The Rum Diary

** out of ****

Directed by: Bruce Robinson

Starring: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Rispoli and Giovanni Ribisi

Running time: 119 minutes

On the surface, Hunter S. Thompson is a writer whose (mis)adventures seem like a perfect fit for the big screen. Often hailed as the creator of gonzo journalism, which blurs the non-fiction, objective aspects of a story with the more exaggerated fictions of the author’s making, Thompson’s penchant for substance abuse and his biting, sardonic social commentary have made him a literary icon, especially since his death in 2005.

But what may be poetically provocative on the page doesn't translate well onto celluloid. Terry Gilliam's adaptation of the author's masterwork, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, captured Thompson's salty, drug-raddled visions but not his voice. In The Rum Diary, his ramblings are there but the narrative arc is incoherent and becomes ultimately worthless.

In both films, Thompson is portrayed by Johnny Depp, once a close friend of the late journalist. Depp ratcheted up the lunacy in Las Vegas, but he is more subdued and gentle here as Paul Kemp, a Thompson surrogate.

Kemp travels to the bustling tropicana of San Juan, Puerto Rico, to work on an English-language newspaper that is, as its grumpy, toupeed editor (played by Richard Jenkins) puts it, “on its way out.” Regardless, Kemp still takes up residence with two reporters with a lifetime subscription to hard alcohol: a slouched but diligent writer named Bob Sala (Michael Rispoli), and a rum-infested leech named Moberg (played with bewildering, hungover gusto by Giovanni Ribisi) who never met a bottle he couldn’t choke down within minutes.

Beyond developing a taste for stronger liquors, Kemp becomes smitten with the ravishing, beach-blonde Chenault (Amber Heard). But she belongs to an arrogant businessman, Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), who calls upon the struggling journalist to write favourably about a transaction he has made to transform Puerto Rico into a resort paradise for wealthy tourists.

Kemp sees the island as a spot for decay while Sanderson revels in how he has “an ocean of money” looming on the horizon. But, like most of the thread-bound episodes from The Rum Diary, this entry doesn’t amount to very much.

I don’t mind episodic narratives if the loosely connected ideas holding them all together are bound with a destination and purpose. But these colourful tales don’t have much bearing on the protagonist and The Rum Diary rarely builds momentum. It casually wanders from one set-piece to the next, as diary entries often do, but they never sum into a worthwhile whole.

Regardless, the performances keep us enthralled: Depp is casual and far more restrained than some of the loopier characters he had embodied since his catapult to the A-list this past decade, which allows him the chance to add gravitas and even light humour to the bizarre events happening around him. He offers his co-stars plenty of opportunities to rejoice in intoxicating spouts of energy – Rispoli and Ribisi are particularly strong as his compadres – and Amber Heard is an undeniable screen presence, glowing with a classic 1950s allure.

Like Heard, the film looks sumptuous, with its nifty aerial photography offerring sparkling views of red Chevrolets and gorgeous blue waters. But the sour psyche of Hunter S. Thomspon, the drawing factor of any text reliant on the late journalist’s hysterical brilliance, is too dry and dilluted. In The Rum Diary, the Puerto Rican inhabitants aren’t the only things that get wasted.

Lend Me Your Ears

The Ides of March

*** out of ****

Directed by: George Clooney

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, George Clooney, Evan Rachel Wood and Paul Giamatti

Running time: 101 minutes

The Ides of March refers to the date when, in 44 B.C., a group of Roman conspirators stabbed and killed their king, Julius Caesar.

Political intrigue was plentiful in the year Caesar fell, as well as in the late 15th century, when Shakespeare put ink to parchment and wrote one of his greatest tragedies. The times haven’t changed very much. In George Clooney’s latest drama, the constant media attention and scrutiny of potential presidential candidates ensures that any person in the running has much to beware.

The battle in this Coliseum, though, is between two Democrat hopefuls for the White House: the idealistic Gov. Mike Morris (Clooney) and Sen. Pullman (Michael Mantell). They are facing off in the Ohio primary, which could be a game-changer for each candidate if they win. As one character remarks, “This primary is the presidential.”

Nobody knows the pressure needed to win more than Morris’s campaign managers, the powerful Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his suave and idealistic protégé, Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling). Stephen is “married to the campaign,” and so attached to his candidate’s zeal and drive for change that his middle name might as well be “Hubris.”

Although Morris is ahead in the polls and a likely endorsement from a popular senator (Jeffrey Wright) will only guarantee him more votes, a rival campaigner (Paul Giamatti) has a few tricks ready for the primary date that could shake up the election.

The Ides of March doesn’t navigate alongside Morris—although there is plenty of George Clooney shouting left-wing rhetoric, if that gets you off. (An oft-seen campaign poster featuring the character blatantly resembles Shepard Fairey’s iconic “Hope” design). Instead, the film follows Stephen as tries to keep a tight race from getting out of control when he makes a few pivotal blunders, one involving an office intern (Evan Rachel Wood) whose father is the head of the Democratic Convention.

Gosling is sharp in the role, and like he did in his excellent performances this year (in Drive and Crazy Stupid Love), he lets his face do much of the talking. Rounding out the ensemble, Hoffman and Giamatti’s supporting work is as fiery as we’ve come to expect from their immense talents, while Marisa Tomei and Jeffrey Wright do well in walk-on roles.

Since the film, based off of the play Farragut North by Beau Willimon, tends to closely align itself with Shakespeare’s revered text, one shouldn’t be surprised to find that there are loyalties, betrayals and dramatic ironies to spare on screen.

But watching the film isn’t too different from watching a play. The camera is static, the dialogue crackles, and the only form of conversation seem to be in two- or three-person settings. Considering that the stakes are not low in Ohio, Clooney should have racheted up more tension and delved deeper into the characters (he adapted the script with Willimon and Grant Heslov).

The Ides of March may go down smooth with a snappy script, elevated by the virtues of the film’s ensemble. But when you attempt to parallel history, as well as Shakespeare, with your title change, one wishes Clooney’s ambition was made of sterner stuff.

(500) Days of Bummer

50/50

**1/2 out of ****

Directed by: Jonathan Levine

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard and Anjelica Huston

Running time: 99 minutes

It’s not easy to make a comedy centering around a young cancer patient; frankly, if Judd Apatow couldn’t pull off the balance between humour and humanity in Funny People, then you’re unlikely to find a writer or director that gets the formula right.

In comparison to Apatow’s film, Jonathan Levine’s 50/50 isn’t much of an improvement. It should have the humanity, since its scribe Will Reiser based the film off of his own misery when he was diagnosed with cancer. But 50/50 isn’t brave enough to tread these into darker waters given the subject matter and mainly tries to deal with the cancer aspects through broad comedy. This is a film that unfortunately deals with sorrow in a manner that is crass, sarcastic, and bereft of much pathos.

The Reiser figure is 27-year-old Adam Lerner, and he’s played by one of the best young actors of our generation, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Adam is harmless: he doesn’t have the will to stand up to his boss at a public radio station, he doesn’t jaywalk while jogging alongside an empty road, and he puts up with a caniving girlfriend, Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) and a crass best friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen).

But when Adam learns of a mass in his spine and the iffy heads-tails odds that he will survive with the tumour, the foundations of his life begin to crumble. His mother (Anjelica Huston, sadly underused) begins to infringe on his spare time and his new therapist, Katherine (Anna Kendrick), is a grad trainee with good intentions but inept precision in dealing with human psychology. Meanwhile, Rachael and Kyle have less compassion for Adam and only worry about how his diagnosis will affect them.

Several of the characters in 50/50 are not on the same page as Adam. Some use him and his condition to pick up women (Kyle) or go further in their medical career (Katherine). The same could be said for the film, which uses the cancer as more of a background toward comedy sketch-like ideas than for serious, dramatic insight.

The film doesn’t handle the disease all too seriously. While Reiser’s script aims to use humour as a therapeutic element to help be optimistic about a grave subject, the comedy—which extends from the stoner realm to frank, sexual dialogue in a manner of minutes—often misses the mark. Levity should only be used sparingly, but many of Seth Rogen’s obnoxious comedy antics overwhelm the subject matter to the extent that the film becomes far too silly far too often.

The only sections where 50/50 works is when it focuses on the depths of Adam's dismay, as he battles with the malignant tumour. The final third of the film, when he confronts the possibility of a soon death, is heartbreaking and refreshingly true. Here, Gordon-Levitt is allowed to broadcast a wide range of emotions, as he slowly turns embittered toward those around him.

50/50 only works, appropriately, half of the time. When it focuses on Adam’s psychological motivations and feelings, it’s an extraordinarily honest film. Unfortunately, the comedy elements are not used as a means to confront the pain, but deter Adam’s story from moving forward. It seems that laughter is not always the best medicine.