Code 46

Directed by Michael Winterbottom

Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Starring: Tim Robbins, Samantha Morton and Om Puri

MPAA: Rated R for a scene of sexuality, including brief graphic nudity.

92 minutes runtime

USA Release August 2004

In a brave new world benefiting from human genetic engineering, one has to be especially careful of casual relationships.  After all, you never know who your sister is.  Or your father or mother, for that matter.  The first offense is punishable by the termination of the pregnancy.  The punishment of the second offense entails termination of personal attributes that nobody wants to lose, even if the option of a test-tube family is universally available.

Robbins plays William, a special investigator for some fuzzy, undefined ruling organization that we know mainly through stated policies flashed across the screen.  Policies that have to do with Code 46, that particular part of futuristic juris prudence dealing with preventing inbreeding in a society with an ever-decreasing gene pool.  There is a problem in paradise.  In fact, we are given the distinct impression there are quite a few problems, and a legion of undercover social workers that are constantly working to keep the family trees from growing upside down, or sideways, as the case may be. 

It is unfortunate that this screenplay had to play the “M” cards and fall back on memory lapses and mind enhancing drugs that allow William to perform magic psychological feats and fail to understand the big picture at the same time.  If the story could have been told without the scientific hocus-pocus it would have been more powerful for it.  Everybody has heard about cloning and it’s only a matter of time before the unbelievable happens and the process is applied to humans.  The process of exploring the “what then” is what this movie is all about.  In any event, Robbins is perfect for the part of William on empathy drugs.  He combines wisdom and sympathy in every look.  He knows something is happening here, but doesn’t quite know what it is.

The immediate comparison to “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” the recent sci-fi extravaganza featuring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, is inevitable.  But “Code 46” is better than that because it substitutes great acting and Robbins’ understated style for the flamboyant psycho-cinema of “Spotless Mind.”  Robbins brings his slightly nerdy, bullied but steadfast persona from “Shawshank Redemption” in full bloom to the brave new world of scientific oppression.  He knows the world is a bad place and radiates his doubts and misgivings about what he is doing, but he is helpless to stop the juggernaut.  Like all of us, he simply does his best to avoid getting sucked under by the whirlpool.

Samantha Morton (“In America,” “Minority Report,” “Morvern Callar”)  plays Maria, a worker in a high-tech factory run by a very concerned Om Puri.  The lab mints computerized permission slips for passage through the rarified society of a human population teetering on the edge of biological instability.  The process regulates travel based on the subject’s ability to withstand the microbial environment at the destination; one mistake and the intrepid tourist finds his skin melting off in Minneapolis.  Probably not the best profession for somebody looking to bring freedom to the oppressed masses, but there you have it.  Maria has decided to get creative with the process and issue fake passes to deserving friends and acquaintances with an urge to see the world.  Word gets out that people with the wrong genes are staying in the wrong Hiltons, and Robbins is dispatched to root out the source of the fake data.

Morton provides an excellent performance in her role as a guilty but unrepentant citizen in a society based on the total control of the inhabitants.  There is an “inside” and an “outside” to this society; and only those who play by the rules get to enjoy the comforts and luxuries of the inside.  Morton’s performance is a powerful statement of foreboding because she knows her days are numbered; that she will be caught and possibly loose her relatively privileged position.  But that doesn’t stop her; she breaks the taboos of genetic management until she is eventually confronted by Robbins the investigator.

In another great stroke of casting, Om Puri (“My Son the Fanatic, “Bend it Like Beckham”) plays the part of Backland, the lab manager.  He is rightly concerned that his wunderkind on the assembly line are getting creative with the logistics of genetic loopholes and that fuzzy enforcement in the form of a very nasty looking and sounding woman on a computer display (Shelly King--didn’t we see her mother in a James Bond movie some time back?) has had to be called to his establishment.  This where Robbins and Morton meet, and the rest is, well…didn’t we see this all before in “Spotless Mind?”  Or maybe we saw it in “My Son the Fanatic” and “Bend it Like Beckham.”  You just never know what those kids will do next.

The plot for “Code 46” is not overly deep and has enough twists and turns to make it accessible as an entertaining chase thriller with a more-or-less predictable beginning, middle and end.  It has an ominous feel kept alive by a glaring, washed out imagery combined with disorienting international verbiage (hectic/over-crowded Asian cities add to the sense of foreboding).  A reasonably believable technological foundation enhances a subdued sense of dread that is underpinned by the documented potential threats of genetic engineering.  Excellent performances by Robbins and Morton backed by a believable scenario conceived by Frank Boyce make this a legitimate movie in spite of the memory loss and magic drug gimmicks.  See it when you can.