To me, it was crazy in a super cool, futuristic, reminiscent of 1984 yet mixed with the struggle of the proletariat among the bourgeoisie kind of deal. (Thanks, high school history.) And I thought, "Hey, I could get on board with this. Love Jim Sturgess, I'm warming up to sci-fi...why not give this a go." I hadn't heard anyone talking about it and wondered why, only to realize that it was a foreign release.
Well, my friends, I will kindly suggest that if you enjoy things that make sense, don't watch this movie. It was pretty to look at, the things that happen in this here picture will make you go, "Huh?" If you're worried about ruining the scattered pieces of plot, be warned. There will be spoilers.
This gem is coming at you from the visionary mind of Juan Solanas. I must stress the word visionary, because this plot makes a lot more sense and seems a lot more beautiful when you think about it. It's basically a sci-fi Romeo and Juliet; they can't be together because their bodies have opposite gravitational pulls on separate planets. Realism isn't something Solanas didn't much care for, which I didn't mind because many of the shots were stunning. Dozens of sunsets and sunrises, stars everywhere, cliffs, mountains, oceans, the view of the regular world and the upside down. Conceptually, there was a lot of cool stuff going on that was pleasing to the eye. After a while, though, it all got kind of gimmicky. What was first cool became redundant and...kind of annoying. 45 minutes in, walking, talking, climbing and sitting on the ceiling wasn't crazy anymore. With that said, I can't even imagine experiencing this drunk or baked.
I wouldn't say I like physics. I didn't take it in high school and I'm notoriously terrible at science and math. Maybe it's my physicist boyfriend that has given me a pseudo-weak spot for the topic. As a sci-fi movie, I'm open to creative liberties for the sake of plot progression. But things got a little out of hand. A recurring element was that Adam's, Jim Sturgess's, Aunt Becky harvested pink bee pollen. Since the bees traveled two and from both worlds, the pollen allowed things to float and have no gravitational pull. Because the bees fed from flowers in two different directions? Mind you, I'm aware that there are plenty of sci-fi films with far goofier premises, but come on.
Also an idea they wanted to hammer home was opposing matter from one universe catching on fire. Quite a few times, Jim Sturgess straps on his anti-gravity boots, and moseyed about the other world. He took his sweet time to soak everything in, while he essentially had fire strapped to chest and feet. The greatest part was how the rules could bend depending on the situation he was in. Going to see Kirstin Dunst's character, Eden, for the first time? He'll last 20 minutes before bursting into flame. Going to lunch with her? Well, that deserves at least two hours. It's just like the classic "let's have sex right now even though someone's about to hack us to little pieces" scene in horror films. There always seems to be just enough time.
At the beginning, Adam and Eden...I need to riff on this for a second. Adam and Eden, really? Why the hell don't you just name her Eve? Instead, naming her after the garden in which they lived is somehow better and not at all a religious reference? Ugh. The worst part is I didn't realize that when I was watching.
Ehem, in the beginning, Adam and Eden meet each other and then we see their friendship blossom from their lives as children to teenagers. They fall in love and come up with a system to defy gravity. Adam pulls Eden down to his world with a rope, so they can make out. Unfortunately, the last time they do their rope trick, Adam lets go and Eden goes plummeting. She cracks her head Humpty Dumpty-style and gets diagnosed with amnesia. But this is no ordinary amnesia. You see, she remembers everything in her dreams and after only talking to him twice within a two-day time span (I think), she remembers her whole life pre-accident. Move over, Allie from The Notebook. And as long as I'm dropping references, I might as well throw Titanic in there, too, because there was THAT moment. The trademark "never let go," except they were on a huge slab of concrete suspended in the air inside the frame of a rocket ship. Wow, that sounds a lot crazier than I thought it would.
The coup de grace was at the very end. She somehow found a way to change her gravitational pull and went down to his level. The detail that it's NBD for her to go down to him but it's a felony for him to go up to her seemed to slip past the writers. Anywho, the crown jewel in this crazy ass plot is when she utters the words, "I'm pregnant. With twins." I screamed. These are two people who struggled being together physically throughout the entire movie and, somehow, at the end...she's pregnant with his babies? I couldn't begin to tell you how it happened, as I would imagine it would be terrible. If there had been a zero-gravity sex scene, it would have been hilarious.
I realize this review may not have made the most sense, but it's fitting for a film with a similar theme. Pretty on the outside, with nothing on the inside to back it up. Ah, reminds me of high school.
Out of four, I give it:
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