Code 46

Michael Winterbottom creates unique, offbeat, nearly unstructured musings on the human condition. An excellent niche to have found, but I've officially given up on him. The two other films I've seen of his (24 Hour Party People and Butterfly Kiss) were just as disjointed and strange as this one. Easy to say "not for me," but all of these films would have been more enjoyable if they had, well, a point. It isn't that this film doesn't have an underlying meaning (and a darn important one at that -- loss of personal freedoms creates a scary world), but that it's too obscured to readily recognize. Having nothing better to do the evening I watched this, I pulled up the DVD featurette describing the making of the film. It becomes obvious why the film feels so unstructured. This was guerilla filmmaking -- screech car to a halt, run out with cameras, a small crew and your two actors, film some quick shots, jump back in the car, race off to another place, repeat there, repeat in another country. How can you storyboard a plot? How can your actors have the faintest clue what they're doing? Which shouldn't impugn Samantha Morton and Tim Robbins, who do amazing things with what little they're given to work with. So, what is the plot? It's sorta like this: in a world where you are not allowed to liase with anyone containing similar DNA and your travel is restricted by an all-knowing corporation, a man and a woman fall in love and try to remain together against these odds. See what I mean?

year: 2003
length: 92 min.
rating: 2.0
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0345061/combined