Everything Is Going to Be All Right

The other night I was lucky enough to see Source Code and sit in on a short Q&A with the film’s director, Duncan Jones. I enjoyed both very much.

I don’t like to know much about any film before my first viewing so I don’t like to include spoilers in my reviews. It may be especially difficult to say much about this film since part of the fun is putting all the pieces together yourself. There are many links included that you might consider spoilers.

I’m not going to fall into the trap of a lot of reviewers and compare this to Jones’ first film. It is just not fair to do that. Moon was a cerebral, hard sci-fi masterpiece. So, Source Code is not as good. I will say I was pleasantly surprised that this film had similar elements.

The film also felt like a mashup of a favorite film, a favorite video game, a good film, and a film I couldn’t stand. I particularly liked using the technique employed in this great film to tell a hard sci-fi story. I was a little worried at first sign of it, but found myself wishing the film had carried it even further.

First, the bad. The film is far from perfect. The film actually reminded me a bit of the Star Wars films – but the bad parts, not the good. There is a lot of fantasy and exposition. It promises hard science fiction¹ but the rules, while interesting and fun, don’t stand up to scrutiny. The viewer is forced to accept “science” that even the film’s resident mad scientist admits “would take weeks to explain” – and he “explains” it several times.

I was also not a big fan of the ending but my suspicion is that I am in the minority.

In spite of the flaws, I highly recommend the film. Not only is it fun, it has something for everyone – suspense, action, a mad scientist, a handsome protagonist, and an adorable girl to fall in love with – and some of the technical merits are excellent. I loved the camera angles, some of the special effects, and I thought most of the acting was very well done.

In the Q&A after, Jones pointed out the difficulty each character had in filling the roles. Jake Gyllenhaal endures a very wide range of emotions, Michelle Monaghan has a very tight story arc and must repeat a lot of her lines over and over again, and Vera Farmiga, an actress trained to ignore the camera, spends much of the film looking directly into the camera (though I love Farmiga, the choice seemed ironic to me²).

Jones also explained the painstaking process of planning all the camera maps so that we are introduced to the characters at the right point and so shots that should be almost identical turn out that way. I can’t wait to see the movie a second time so I can carefully appreciate this feat.

I’ll probably see the film again and I expect the Blu-ray to be worth a buy

NOTES:

Star Wars never promised us hard science fiction so that’s okay. Apart, of course, from the ridiculous attempt in the new trilogy to explain the force as some by-product of nature (silly).

In my opinion, Vera Farmiga, though an attractive woman from any angle is decidedly more so when she is not looking directly at me. Compare this photo with this one to see if you agree (I attempted to choose the best “head on” shot I could fine to be fair).