In Time
What Andrew Niccol’s exciting thriller, “In Time,” lacks in subtlety, it more than makes up for in intelligence and thrills. This is the first film behind the camera for the Oscar-nominated writer of “The Truman Show” since the 2005 film, “Lord of War,” and he’s lost none of his probing, socially-minded gifts as a storyteller. That the “Gattaca” and “S1m0ne” filmmaker grounds his films in character and motivation makes his work pop all the more.
In what I would say is his best performance to date (and yes, I’m including the Oscar-winner, “The Social Network”) is Justin Timberlake, who brings more than just sexy to his role as Will, a 28-year-old living in the ghetto neighborhood of Dayton with his mother (Olivia Wilde). It looks like any other inner-city slum, but the currency is now time. You see, once you hit your 25th birthday in Niccol’s near-future, you stop aging, and a timer on your arm starts, and you are given one year. What you do with that time, be it live, eat, drink, or buy a hotel room for a little, illegal lovin’, is up to you, but once the timer reads all 0s, you die. So time is a major commodity, although as Will is going to learn when he encounters Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer), a man from the upper-classes of society who has over a century on his clock, even something as precious as a week can mean different things, regardless of where you come from.
As I mentioned before, Niccol’s level of satire in this film is hardly subtle (although it does make it remarkably timely given the current Occupy: Wall Street protests), but the energy he gives the film as a director, and the focus he puts on his three main characters (Will; rich girl Sylvia, played by Amanda Seyfreid; and the “Timekeeper” who’s chasing them, played by the terrific Cillian Murphy, and has his own perspective on the time discrepancy between the “haves” and “have nots”) as a storyteller, had me as enthralled by his philosophically-minded sci-fi thriller as this year’s “The Adjustment Bureau” did. Like that film, “In Time” will leave you thinking.
