It's been a big week for me, as I think I've seen the two best films this year in the space of 3 days!
Please don't go into this movie thinking it's a time-travel, action thriller, because that's not what it is and I hope the marketing doesn't muck it up because you could be disappointed if that is your expectation. And it doesn't deserve disappointment, because it is a remarkable film. What it actually is, is a noir film wrapped around a character-driven mystery with some sci-fi touches.
The plot (what I can reveal anyway) centres around a man who is trying to prevent a large scale bombing in New York in 1975. The man is unsuccessful and suffers horrible burns from which he is saved and eventually recovers. The man (Ethan Hawke) is a decorated field agent who we discover can travel through time (called a temporal agent in this movie) and has been doing so for a while to try to find and stop "The Fizzle Bomber". Once recovered, The Organisation send him on a mission back to 1975 to try one last time to apprehend the Fizzle Bomber. One night, a man enters the bar and after a few drinks, bets The Bartender that he has the most unbelievable story the Bartender has ever heard. Thus proceeds an incredible tale of what has happened in the life of this man who was once born a woman. However, that story is really just a framing device for our movie, as at the end of the tale, the Bartender asks the man if he wants to find the man who ruined his life and kill him. This sets in train a series of events using time travel to put all the pieces into place for our final destination.
So you can see how detailed the movie's plot is if the above long paragraph is only the small part I can reveal without spoiling the mystery. It requires concentration and focus to keep up with what's happening. The first part with the conversation serves to provide both clues to and distractions from the mystery which gradually gets solved over the second part which has the faster scenes as we move towards the capture of the bomber and understanding of how The Bartender and Unmarried Mother (the pen name of the man) are connected. It's not an earth shattering twist in the end, but it has been so elegantly built with red herrings and clues that the more you think about it, the more wormholes you can go down.
The direction by Brisbane's own Spierig twins, Michael and Peter, is superb and I congratulate them on making an Australian movie with Australian talent in front of and behind the cameras, but having no 'Australian-ness' about it, which should give it a broad appeal. Some may criticise this but I don't see any need for this particularly story to have an Australian setting and I really liked the noirish production design. The Spierigs also wrote the film so all credit to them for making the year's best brain-bender to date.
But the story, direction and design would not have been enough to make a great movie had the wrong actors been chosen as it's essentially a three-hander. Ethan Hawke is solid as The Bartender/temporal agent who kind of has to blend into the background and obviously works well with these directors (he also led the Spierig's second film Daybreakers, a great little vampire film). Good ol' Noah Taylor does well to make you wonder if he is a goodie or baddie as Agent Robertson from The Organisation. Sarah Snook, however, is amazing as Unmarried Mother/the man. You have probably been reading/hearing this a lot in the last week or two, but it is definitely true that this is an absolute standout performance. I first saw her in an ABC telemovie about wartime nurses where she really stood out, then she was in a couple of films: Not Suitable for Children and These Final Hours. She was good in those, but this is her breakout role for sure. Acting as both a woman and a man should be challenge enough, but the script adds so much heartbreak and weirdness in this character. She is utterly convincing as both genders and in both happiness and pain. She is a star now.
It has been just over 24 hours since I walked out of the movie and I am still obsessed with thinking about it. I really want to get out a whiteboard and markers and try to get a really good handle on what happened. But I don't think I'll really understand everything. Think I might try reading the 1958 short story "All you Zombies" on which it was based! But even that may not help since the Fizzle Bomber aspect has been added for the movie and that is where more of my questions lie.
I'm giving this my first 5 star rating for the year. Mind = blown. A must-see movie. Unless your favourite genre is rom-coms.
No comments:
Post a Comment