MIFF NOTES: Predestination (2014, Dirs. Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig)

I got a bit drinky before Predestination, so I struggled a little with the extended exposition of the film's first hour. I'm told the really heavy exposition only lasted about 20 minutes. I won't argue with that but I'll posit that not too many would argue with the fact that it felt like an hour.

Aussie writer/director brothers, Michael and Peter Spierig, have crafted their time traveller after a short story by sci-fi doyen, Robert A. Heinlein but bowed to the pressures of Hollywood and cast sexily. In doing so they've had to stretch the story's believability even further. Sarah Snook wearing glasses doesn't automatically become unattractive, nor do a couple of fight scenes reinforce her "difference". And that's not to mention the lengths they've gone to cast in Ethan Hawke.

To be frank, I don't think I've ever experienced a time travel narrative quite so narrativey. Everything here is slave to story churn, and it churns so incessantly that its characters, its drama and even its reasonably thoughtful retro design have all been spun far too thin.

The Spierigs sell Predestination's interestingly convoluted storyline short by investing very little energy into their characters' emotional lives. The film reads like 97 minutes of quickly sketched backstory notes. Their primary focus is comprehensively connecting the dots across the ages (usually with more of that excruciatingly clunky exposition), which means some pretty complex gender issues get reduced to explanatory plot points. Poor form in this day and age.

Worst of all, the brothers seem so caught up in their story's supposed cleverness that they have missed the fact that even its most hairpin turns are liberally signposted. Watching a film convinced it's blowing your mind when you've "figured it out" in the first (drunken), (hour-like) 20 minutes is quite the chore.

★★☆

Trailer:

Disclaimer: Due to excessive work and excessive film going, MIFF posts are going to be pretty sketchy this year. I'll come back to some of the better ones and write them up proper-like if the mood takes.