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| Ethan Hawke is pretty intense as the grizzled protagonist in Predestination (2014) |
The Spierig brothers make tremendously fun and wickedly smart films--ones that appeal to smart viewers who like to think when they go to the movies (and perhaps keep thinking afterward). I'll never forget going to see Undead (2003) on a whim, even though it received a blisteringly terrible review from Entertainment Weekly's Owen Glieberman (who just didn't get it). It's a zombie film with a female hero, an alien film, and just plain awesome (and hilarious). In fact, it's one of the only horror comedies I've ever really liked. Many years later, they made Daybreakers (2009), also starring Ethan Hawke. The film created a detailed world where vampires were part of the fabric of society, outnumbering humans and struggling to feed when there is little to no human blood to be found. These filmmakers are really strong at world-building and creating a visually rich tapestry of images, and Predestination continues there pretty stunning track record (three for three)! The film is based on a Robert A. Heinlein story "All You Zombies" from 1958.
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| Trying to stop the Fizzle bomber |
The film opens with an explosion that disfigures the main character, who wakes up in the hospital after reconstructive surgery and his voice has altered. Hmmmm. Turns out he (Hawke) is a time-traveler who works for a covert government agency that stops horrific crimes before they happen. He's been tracking the "Fizzle bomber," who allegedly will blow up 10 city blocks in 1975. So he goes back to the 70s on his final mission to try to stop the guy. His deep cover is as a bartender at a dive bar in New York City.
One night at work he meets a unique, but rather grumpy person, who comes into the bar and wagers that he has the best, most compelling story to tell (for a full bottle of booze). This stranger (Sarah Snook) proceeds to tell a twisting, tragic story that plays with gender--turns out that he is a former "she," born a hermaphrodite, who struggled with his gender identity, fell in love with a mystery man who knocked her up, mothered a child who was subsequently stolen from her, and now writes True Confession stories, and walks through this world, as a man (with the requisite sex organs). Some of the film's strongest moments come from the detailed construction of this sci-fi world during these 60s flashbacks, where women are trained to service men in outer space as a part of the "Space Corps."
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| women training for their trip into space as "space corps" |
Hawke's character, upon hearing his tale of woe, tells him that he can deliver the man who caused all of these rather tragic events, and takes him back to meet his earlier self (as a woman), in 1963. Things get messier from there, because Hawke's character is actually actively recruiting the storyteller to become a time travel agent for this secret government agency, run by an enigmatic Noah Taylor.
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| There's more to "space corps" than meets the eye |
I'll stop here because any additional description of the film will give too much away. Suffice to say that one of the most annoying things about a time-travel film is the time paradox, and how that paradox is explained. From The Terminator series, to Looper, to Lost, to the awesome Sci-fi show Continuum, the time paradox tends to really muck things up, and skew any sensible logic to the film. Now imagine if one raised the paradox to the NTH degree, and you have the clever, and rather sick, Predestination. These filmmakers are committed to mind fu**ing the audience with this one.
Okay, so I hated Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010), and I figure that opinion might make me decidedly unpopular. That film just seemed like it was trying too hard to be smart, and made some viewers feel clever when the film wasn't remotely clever at all. While Predestination is smarter than Nolan's pop mind fu**, I figured out part of the big twist within the film's first 10 minutes, and the rest of it not long after. That discovery does not really hurt the film, though. It's still a tremendously fun ride, that kept me thinking, albeit a little queasy, during the closing credits and beyond. I would definitely check it out, and the rest of the Spierig Brothers work, while you're at it.
