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Splice
(2010)
Directed by
Vincenzo Natali
Review by
Zach Saltz
Posted - 6/26/10
The trailers for
Splice make it look like a
tired retread of Alien
or Jurassic Park. It’s what
the legendary Hollywood creativity killer Robert McKee would call a
“Monster in the Closet” story – mysterious creature gets uncovered by
foolishly naïve scientists, subsequently escapes, and proceeds to reek
havoc through surprise attacks and sudden string jolts in the musical
score. And while Splice
occasionally falls victim to this
formula, there are a few noteworthy deviations that render the film
slightly more intriguing, memorable, and provocative than the average
entry in the “creature feature” genre.
The film stars Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley as
Clive and Elsa, two genetic engineers who spend their time in the lab
mutating the genes of various animal species to form benign worm-like
creatures with an elaborate, pretty mating ritual. I liked Clive
and Elsa more than the typical impossibly good-looking scientists for a
few reasons. First, there’s no irritating sexual tension between
them because Splice
makes no bones about them already being
lovers. Second, there’s no danger in them losing funding (the
classic initial dramatic thrust in movies about good-looking, horny
scientists), even though there is an unnecessary subplot about their
research being moved into “Phase Two” (the profit-making phase – OK, the
movie can’t entirely escape from cliché central). Finally, in
Clive and Elsa, we have two of modern cinema’s first hipster scientists.
Clad in leather jackets, funny tee-shirts that Michael Cera would wear,
and with a beatbox pounding in the lab (and sleeping in a bed beneath a
giant framed anime poster), this duo puts the grunge-tastic crew from
Hackers to shame.
Elsa’s biological clock has been ticking for a
while, and one night as an act of maternal sabotage, incorporates her
own DNA into the genetic mix, and a half-human, half-amphibious,
half-whatever baby-creature is born. It’s a nasty little thing at
first, hopping around the lab with no arms, like a CGI fuzzy baby
kangaroo. But soon, the creature (whom Elsa dubs Dren – “Nerd”
backwards) begins to exhibit human features – both in its appearance (it
doesn’t help that Elsa sticks a dress on it and hands it a Barbie doll)
and its intelligence. We see the requisite dilemmas – how to keep
the creature a secret, what it likes to eat, etc.
This is all good and fun, I suppose, but not
particularly interesting or unique (spoilers herein). Where
Splice finally transcends from Boris Karloff to David Cronenberg is
when Dren develops a sexual appetite for Clive (not particularly
surprising given the eventual breakdown of the mother-daughter
relationship; Elsa does her best Mo’Nique impersonation from
Precious
by locking Dren in a barn and cutting off her tail). Clive and
Dren are soon dancing it up in the barn, and he finds her large,
alien-like beady eyes irresistible.
Is the movie a complete success? No.
The screenplay, by director Vincenzo Natali and Antoinette Terry Bryant,
is at first too discreet about the torrid sexuality that will eventually
play out. The characters are too feeble-minded to ask basic
questions of the creature’s desire to reproduce. As dirty-minded
viewers who have seen Species one too many times, we are not.
And when the shit finally hits the fan and Brody and the creature go at
it (in the most wonderfully preposterous sex scene since
Watchmen),
Natali stupifyingly abandons the provocations of inter-species eroticism
in favor of a timidly conservative dramatic foil (Dren simply looks too
much like Elsa for Brody to resist). This is the second movie this
year, after Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, to dare to ask questions about
deviant sex, but ultimately fail to follow through, perhaps to ensure
commercial viability among mainstream American audiences. Worst of
all, these tensions only surface for about twenty minutes toward the end
of the picture. Why not cut out the whole
E.T. “let’s-care-for-the-creature-by-feeding-it” crap and develop some
serious insights into this material?
Indeed, the messages of
Splice are downright
fundamentalist by the end of the picture – the transgressions of the
brave new world of genetic engineering are the fault of woman, and they
are the ones left to bear the brunt of an impure patriarchal line.
The film is worth seeing because the characters are likable and the
story occasionally weaves itself in unexpected directions, but the
viewer is left with more questions about how much further the story
could have been taken than definitive answers about why genetic
engineering may be a bad idea.
Rating:
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