by John Lobell
[Spoiler alert] First, some personal background. I have for the past few years been consulting on a project called Timeship, a $300 million project devoted to extreme life extension. Put simply, the developers of the project object to death and intend to “cure” it, finding the genetic cause of aging and turning it off. (You can find out more at Timeship.org, and get the book on the project, Timeship: The Architecture of Immortality, on Amazon.) So what was fantasy for Mary Shelley is now becoming reality. Craig Venter has announced the creation of a new life form as he gains the ability to code DNA as facilely as computer programmers code C++. But as in all great science fiction, the core of Splice is not science, but metaphor.
Splice is one of the best science fiction movies of its kind, up there with AI in its investigation of the human meanings of creation-of-life technologies. It achieves its stature, as does much great science fiction, by being not just about the science, but also about the human impact of the science. And it goes further in making that impact be not on stereotypes, but on real, fleshed-out people.
Two geneticists, a couple, working for a biotech firm mix the DNA of various animals with the woman’s DNA to create a creature which they tell each other they will “terminate,” but to which (or whom) they become attached. The creature, eventually named Dren, conveniently has a gene for rapid aging, so that she can come to adulthood within weeks.
The movie presents genetic research and the creation of artificial organisms with visceral reality, but the genius of the film is the play between the activities of the geneticists as scientists and as parents. Should they create this creature? Should she get pregnant? Should they terminate their experiment? Should she have an abortion? How will the creature disrupt their personal and professional lives? What do they do when it won’t eat? When it gets a fever?
The movie brilliantly plays the parental instincts of the geneticists, their personal limitations and neuroses, and their scientific ambitions against each other. It may seem trite to conflate a scientist’s desire to create new life with a woman’s desire to have a baby, but the movie does so brilliantly, and in so doing is as powerful a portrayal of Promethean scientific motivation as we have ever seen in a movie.
The model for Splice is, of course, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus. Frankenstein explores two themes, the first the presumption of Dr. Frankenstein in upstaging nature and creating life, and the second his crime of abandoning his creature and not providing it companionship. And these are exactly the themes explored in Splice, with its weak indecisive male parent and headstrong female parent.
Both use Dren to play out their dramas. And Dren presents a perfect foil for both of them as she convincingly grows from an oversized embryo looking like a huge plucked chick, to a rabbit-like baby, to an enticing little girl, to a magnificent angelic (including the wings) creature of irresistible sexuality.
Dren dies twice, giving the movie two endings, the first ending the experiment and providing lessons in life, growing up, and parenthood, as well as lesson in the meanings of our new biotechnology and what it means to be human. The second ending takes us into the realm of Resident Evil and Species in order to give the studio a chance at box-office success and an opportunity for sequels.
John,
I do believe the title to this film is actually “Splice”. I really want to see this and I thank you for this thoughtful and informed review. Thank you!
Thanks. I fixed it. – John
(CONTAINS SPOILERS EARLY ON. A lot of the plot does depend on twists)
I was a bit confused by the themes of this movie. It’s the Frankenstien theme–creation and parenting–a given. But there are added elements: recurring childhood trauma, gender-role and actual sex-reversals, incest, rape, and…maybe even…the bi-polar effects of human parthenogenesis. Polley’s Elsa goes from:
1)A lady who favors her professional scientific life over that of a parent due to childhood trauma
2)Break though scientist who saves “art” from “profit” by sprinkling a little bit of her magic DNA into a desperate 11th hour attempt to save the day
3)Co-conspirator, fatigued new parent, and fuzzy-logic scientist along with Brody’s Clive
4)Re-discoverer of the worst things about the scientific method when Dren reaches adolescence and Clive becomes an inappropriate sexual object and/or she’s upset about a cat
5)Heartbroken parent/jilted lover[This plot device was written for the target audience of Woody Allen] 6)Savior of “profit” over “art”
7)Rape and incest victim
8)Lucrative Scientific Property.
Being a horrible parent was so much easier in the Romantic era. And that’s just the journey of a single character in Splice.
It’s not that any of this is un-involving…the movie zips along. It is just that so much is happening, I feel that the characters or plot don’t get to lock onto anything that really shakes you to the core when you are watching the movie. My date and I were unsure what had happened to the Polley character that was so bad…is sleeping on a mattress child abuse? And this is a hugely mine-able theme…that trauma passes on from generation to generation. The line between profound plot twist and shenanigan to keep the pace is really blurry in this one.
For me, the jury is still out on Splice. I respect and admire director Vincenzo Natali for his fidelity to the science fiction film. And he does a lot with a smaller budget…yeah Canada…yeah Cronenberg! I thought Dren and the other creatures came off well, especially when she became a William Blake illustration. I came into this knowing the acting and themes would require a certain amount of suspension of disbelief and be a bit broad. Cypher, his last big outing in my book, has a wonderfully clinical and generic corporate atmosphere. Cube, his masterpiece, is full of easy archetypes and hammy, heavy–but some surpringly insightful– metaphors about the military-industrial age. And the actors are really into that their roles! Maybe he just needed a better lead than Brody to win me over and suspend my disbelief. And set design this time out…eeeh…should I should get excited that he’s the new guy on the never ending Neuromancer project? Remember how much he got out of a recycled set…so long ago…in Cube? I don’t want to be a hater, it’s hard to get good a good sci-fi flick started these days.