Code 46 is a stylish and provocative science fiction love story that, while mixing genres and invoking an ancient Oedipal subtext, throws together an unlikely couple played by Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton.
Briton Michael Winterbottom's film is set in a recognizable near-future which could be the logical if terrifying conclusion to the United States' current war on terrorism. This is a chilling world in which the haves and the have-nots are strictly separated, regulated and controlled.
The privileged live in relative comfort in multi-cultural, homogenized cities, but are subject to rigorous Big Brother laws that control their procreation, their recreation and even their memories. In an age of cloning and genetic manipulation, personal freedom has been stripped away. Faceless bureaucracy triumphs. Think Orwell's 1984.
The castaways live in abject poverty in scorched earth landscapes or in grotty, lawless communities. While they enjoy "freedom" from intrusions into their sex lives, they cannot prosper. Nor can they travel widely, not without precious electronic cards known as papelles. Think Casablanca.
In a convoluted plot (written by Winterbottom's frequent collaborator Frank Cottrell Boyce) that could have been harvested from a 1950s film noir and grafted to Blade Runner, Robbins stars as an insurance company investigator whose secure world is about to explode.
Dull, methodical and routinely married, he is sent from Seattle to Shanghai to use his virus-enhanced, intuitive gifts to uncover a criminal who creates counterfeit papelles.
He quickly discovers the perpetrator is an eccentric and sensuous young woman -- who is played by the saucer-eyed Morton with a stunning mix of passion, heart and vulnerability. She is the spark on Robbins' flint and he falls in love, awakening from his stupor to begin this impossible romance. Their love/sex is an act of rebellion.
The tone of this very adult film is fatalistic yet strangely upbeat. The look is mesmerizing, with the futuristic elements introduced more through music and lighting than through grand design or the flashing of hi-tech gadgets.
So Winterbottom's future world, beautifully shot on location in China, India, the United Arab Emirates and Britain, is an extension of the world we live in now. Even the new universal language -- a rich mixture of English spiced with Arabic, Mandarin, Spanish, French and other random words -- makes sense if you believe that Westernized multi-national corporations will eventually take over everything.
As for the Oedipal thing, that is part of the movie's many mysteries. Some, including the possibility and allure of genetic incest, are explained, to a point. But significant story fragments are left dangling. There is simply not enough information to turn the story into a cohesive whole.
At the same time, there is such intelligence at play -- and I'm talking about the filmmakers and not the often naive characters they created -- that Code 46 maintains its hypnotic pull from edgy beginning to bittersweet end.
The film played as a gala in the 2003 Toronto filmfest.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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