Review

Review Date: 22-August-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Junk

Code 46 (2004)

In his futuristic detective-slash-love story "Code 46," screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce describes a world produced by global warming and omnipresent technology in which everyone lives under strict regulations regarding where they can live, where they can go, and even whom they can love. As with all sci-fi, this brings up a number of philosophical questions, but director Michael Winterbottom presents them in a peripheral, almost indifferent way; he seems more interested in indulging his own artiness and fascination with his leading lady than in addressing concepts like dehumanization. Lacking any real tension or feeling, "Code 46" promises passion and significance but delivers redundancy and vanity. Mostly it just gave me a headache.

The movie opens in Shanghai, where William (Tim Robbins) has been sent to investigate the smuggling of travel vouchers from a large corporation called The Sphinx. By means of which we learn later, William can read people's thoughts if they offer him a piece of personal information, and thus it is that he immediately recognizes the culprit in a young employee named Maria (Samantha Morton). Despite having a wife and son at home, William protects the pretty rebel and proceeds to spend the night with her, I suppose due to love at first sight. (Most movies use a trail of discarded clothing or lots of stagey sex to denote this phenomenon, but Winterbottom opts instead for an excruciating Morton-dancing-in-a-strobe-light sequence and an only slightly less excruciating Morton-experiencing-oral-sex scene. Frankly, I think the old standby would have worked better, since these moments appear to involve Morton and Winterbottom alone, and poor William is nowhere to be found.)

The morning after, William goes home to resume his old life, but he is soon ordered back to Shanghai to complete his investigation and ends up working to uncover why Maria has disappeared. He finds out that she was sent to a clinic in violation of Code 46 (in which he himself was her unwitting accomplice), and, as a result, their night together has been erased from her mind. (Sorry, but we've already done memory erasure this year,* and it was a whole lot better than this.) Still, their instant connection is as strong as before, so the lovers run away in futile pursuit of the freedom to live as they choose. (This time, Winterbottom has William strap Maria to a bed and then leave so that he can enjoy another round of filming Morton in the throes of pleasure.)

The director's private obsession and self-consciously languorous style sabotage his usually competent stars, who come across as forgettably dull (him) or narcissistically dull (her). But Winterbottom and the actors can't bear all the brunt of the movie's failings. Although I liked Boyce's sly bits of humor and practice of polyglot slang, I have one thing to say against his pivotal Code 46: STERILIZATION. Somehow I doubt it will go out of style in the future, and it's ridiculous that William and Maria's society doesn't regard it as an option or even a requirement in certain situations. But a greater dose of sense couldn't have prevented "Code 46" from leaving me cold. Let the future be a place where Big Brother dominates and love has to hide; I just hope it's not as tedious as this.

* "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.