General Impressions While Watching In Time.

This are general thoughts and feeling upon watching In Time. I fear that I run short here, but there is a thing as too much.

In Time, directed by Andrew Niccol, features Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried as a pair that harkens back to the Bonnie and Clyde style duo, with shades of Robin Hood. In the film time to live is handed out to people like paychecks after they turn 25, and they never age after that point. Timberlake’s character, Will Salas, is from the lower class ghettos; and is mysteriously given over a hundred years worth by Henry Hamilton before he kills himself. Hamilton, played by USA’s White Collars star Matt Bomer, gives an existential crisis that challenges the immortal upper class: no one should live forever, because what does your life matter if you don’t die. (He never says it in those direct words, but that is how I took it.) Salas then breaks into the upper class part of the city, where he meets Amanda Seyfried’s character Sylvia Weis. Together they become a Bonnie and Clyde/Robin Hood-esque duo, robbing banks for years and handing them out to the poor.

Time is measured on the arms of individuals,
like a quasi bioengineered watch.When it hits zero, you die.

Not to many films are “pure” genre films, meaning that they adhere to the rules and formulas of any one specific film. There are bits and pieces of film noir, science fiction, and caper/heist films in here. It moves slow like a film noir, never using the fast cuts that we see in most modern action films today. More importantly, in my humble opinion, there are moments the camera lingers on characters as the let an emotion settle in them, or they think. It doesn’t linger on the characters thinking in a Douglas Sirk film, it still is slower than most films, (Michael Bay,) and does mean it is more intelligent than most films, (again Michael Bay.) Many people have complained about this film being too slowThe original point of the creation of fast editing and montage was to insure the audience would not think, but allow the film to think for them,(any commercial and again, thank you, Michael Bay.) I think that intellectuals in the meantime are put off by the parrelels it may have with Bonnie and Clyde, but this is forgiveable. Films, especially American films, reuse familiar film Genre formats when presenting outlandish and abstract ideas that people may reject. If you do not believe me watch Oceans 11 and then Inception, and tell me there are no parallels between the two films. I found that the pacing of the movie, its beats, and its twists kept me into the story and entertained.

As Bonnie and Clyde meets Robin Hood, robbing the rich,
distributing to the poor.

This film draws several parallels with the real world. The first and most obvious in American culture is the concept of health care. With publicity about the American health care system by the media, example Sicko by Michael Moore, and Obama’s failing fight for a universal healthcare many people will watch the film and think that it is exactly like that. In many ways it is. It is more about the distribution of wealth, not just in the U.S., but there is also the implication of a world wide phenomenon, (the ending hints playfully at the idea of there always being a bigger fish.) We have witnessed the 99 percent riots, and the movie hints at a similar goal. 

Seyfried and her father belong to In Time’s 1 percent population. Those that live there move slowly, compared to those that live in the slums. In the slums you have to rush or else your clock might run out and you will die. The 1 percent are leisurely in their pursuits, and don’t take any risks because the only way that they can ever die is “with a bullet.” Seyfried’s characters father quotes Social Darwinism, wherein only the strong survive, as his justification for his life style. He even says that for him to be immortal, many people have to die. I know that there are those in the audience that will watch this and think he maybe over the top as a villain, but any educated person, or any person who has listened to similar people know that these are direct lines from this world.

The movie never hints at socialism, but compassion, I believe. This maybe a misreading by me because I want to believe in the Capitalist system despite its inherent flaws because I enjoy the liberties attained to me by the American system as opposed to the restrictions by the Socialist system. Timberlake and Seyfried’s characters are generous with their time, even if it means running their clocks down to a point it may risk their lives. If everyone in a Capitalist system was generous there would be no Occupy Movements, there would be no need. However, we do have Occupy because there is corruption. Social Darwinism has nothing to do with Darwin directly, or with science, but business leaders misreading of Darwin in the early turn of the century 1900’s. I’m not suggesting that every CEO or banker is like this either, but in fact I have heard many interesting discussions with some that explain it is not truly them but the main thing we are all worried about: the system broken.

If you think I am contradicting myself, I can understand your thinking. I must explain myself here a little bit. I took a Humanities class last semester, and my Professor explained that no system works properly. A socialist system, as history has witnessed, is just as corrupt as a capitalist system. It is better for us to work inside the system and try to change it, and have “compassion” as we work in it. However in the movie it never goes in this direction. Cillian Murphy plays Raymond Leon, a police detective who came from the slums, worked his way up, and now fights for the system. Timberlake and Seyfried continue to fight outside the system, tearing it down slowly. This model of change could not work in our world, because the system in our world is even bigger than the one in In Time, and therefore even more police forces. Perhaps this is Andrew Niccol working in the system for change, he made the movie with the system to get people talking and thinking. This is something I will have to research in the future, perhaps, as to his thoughts on his film.

There are many more things that can be said, and should be said about this movie. I will close with these last thoughts: it was amazing this movie was made. It isn’t subtle in who it is attacking, big businesses/banks, who are funders of big movies like this. It almost doesn’t surprise me that it didn’t get more press, and was not a success. However, with the Occupy movement this movie capture the zeitgeist perfectly, so why was it not a bigger success through grassroots? I believe that this movie though it was not a success, like many great movies such as Citizen Kane, will appreciate in time.