Note: My personal blog is on indefinite hiatus, however I am cross-posting from my newspaper blog at The Marshall Independent and the print-only TV Guide.
“If the rich could hire the poor to die for them, the poor would make a very good living.” – Jewish proverb
Imagine a world where time is money – literally.
Writer/director Andrew Niccol’s “In Time,” is set in a distant future when everyone is issued 25 years plus one at birth. At 25 people stop aging, but get one more year of life, measured on a digital clock on their forearm. They must work, gamble, or steal for time to pay their rent, bus fare, etc. Time can be bought, given, or stolen. When their clock runs down to zero, they die.
Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives in a “ghetto.” He and his mother (Olivia Wilde) live day to day, going to work each day to earn another day of life.
Then Will is given a century of life by a suicidal rich man slumming in the ghetto. When his mother clocks out and dies in his arms Will determines to invade the precincts of the very rich and stir things up a bit.
The notion of government regulating the length of citizens’ lives has been done before, but Niccol’s treatment is brilliantly original.
That didn’t prevent SciFi writer Harlan Ellison from suing, claiming close similarity to his 1965 short story, “’Repent Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman.’”
In this writer’s humble opinion, the similarity was purely that of general theme. Jack Vance would have had a marginally better case for copyright infringement for his 1956 novel, “To Live Forever.” Or for that matter “Bonnie and Clyde,” (pretty couple robs banks together,) or Patty Hearst (kidnapped heiress joins her kidnapper.)
Some of the characters are over a century old, but Niccols had to use only actors who could pass for 25.
George Orwell said, “At 50 everyone has the face they deserve.”
So how do you show age when nobody ages? When faces aren’t sculpted by their life?
Niccol created a startling effect by casting a youthful and somewhat effeminate-looking Vincent Kartheiser, 32, as the super-rich Phillipe Weis. (How rich? “Aeons,” says his daughter Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried.)) When Phillipe meets Will, he introduces him to three young beauties with smooth, unlined faces – as his wife, mother-in-law, and daughter.
Rich immortals live in a smothering cocoon. When Will buys a hot car he’s asked where he wants to display it.
“Display? I’m going to drive it,” he says.
Sylvia lives in a mansion on a beach, but has never been in the water or played in the breakers until Will shows her that life without risk is no life at all. Syvia then becomes an enthusiastic devotee of risky adventures such as robbing daddy’s banks for time to give to the poor.
A good time is had by all with car chase/smashups, shoot ‘em ups, and run-for-your-life suspense.
But there’s some food for thought here as well.
If you had all the time in the word, how would you spend it?
If you could live as long as you wanted, would you hoard your life like a miser, or embrace it with all its risks?
If others had to die so you could live forever, would you?
And it’s nice to see that question addressed outside of a vampire movie for once.