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“One of the best bad movies I’ve ever seen.” That’s the review headline from an Amazon.com customer’s fairly well thought-out description of this movie that does, in the end, recommend Code 46 as well worth seeing. Like that reviewer, I have been wondering what to say about the movie, which does leave you sitting on the couch in a kind of stunned silence for a while, unsure if you need to own this movie forever, or if you got gypped. I’m inclined to think I’m going to end up of the former opinion.

I’ve already told a couple of friends that while I’m sure I know plenty of people who would hate this movie (sorry lot that they are :-P), I would definitely recommend it to dyed-in-the-wool fans of dystopian sci-fi and/or film noir, or anyone who considers themselves some degree of “theater geek” or “film geek.” But first, let’s get one thing straight: the trailer that I just watched for purposes of this posting, which you can see here, is so not an accurate depiction of the movie I watched yesterday. That trailer is for a thriller that doesn’t exist, pumped up with fast-paced techno, totally rearranged and horribly juxtaposed scenes, and selections of footage heavily weighted toward the most fast-paced snippets of film they could muster. I think this movie will definitely grab your attention, but it will not raise your pulse like that.

‘Cept maybe during the doin’ it parts. But anyway.

The first two types of film buffs that should like this movie are easy to call: this is a fairly interesting depiction of a dystopian near-future in which the sun has won its battle with our ozone layer; much of the suburbs and hinterland has been reduced to desert; movement between the oasis-like cities is highly controlled (by what seems to be a cross between Homeland Security and the insurance industry); and many people are genetically related to strangers due to widespread use of cloning and in-vitro fertilization, so you have to get a gene screen before you do it. It also definitely qualifies to a large extent as film noir, based on certain characteristics like

• “primary moods of…melancholy, alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt, desperation and paranoia”
• “Heroes (or anti-heroes)…include down-and-out, conflicted hard-boiled detectives or private eyes”
• “Narratives were frequently complex, maze-like and convoluted, and typically told with foreboding background music, flashbacks (or a series of flashbacks)…and/or reflective and confessional, first-person voice-over narration.”
• “The females in film noir were either of two types (or archetypes) - dutiful, reliable, trustworthy and loving women; or femme fatales - mysterious, duplicitous, double-crossing, gorgeous, unloving, predatory, tough-sweet, unreliable, irresponsible, manipulative and desperate women.” [Tim Robbins is framed by both.]

And a slew of other cinematographic elements fall in line with that genre as well. If you want a mood movie, in here you’ve got one. Particularly if that mood you want is, in the end, bad.

Finally, for the general theater/film geeks, this movie is just an impressive work to admire from the production point of view. Code 46 was shot in relatively short order, on a very modest budget of $9.5M — compare that to about $47M for the much slower, cheesier, barely-worth-seeing future-love remake of Solaris with George Clooney. I’ve got to whole-heartedly disagree with one cranky Amazon customer who whined that “the producers had so little faith in this movie that they decided to spend little if any money on special effects to convince the viewers that they were in fact in the year 2050,” a guess of the date made by Mr. Crankypants. What is impressive about this production is that by jaunting around the world and shooting on location in dingy, barren or crowded places most Western audiences don’t typically see (Shanghai, Hong Kong, India, United Arab Emirates), director Michael Winterbottom managed to convey the sense of a bleak near-future without having to wow us with hovercars (looks like we’re still driving Honda Odysseys, Toyota Priuses, and beat-up old Fiats in the future), laser guns, and digital megalopolis backdrops. Besides, this movie is, first and foremost, a love story; it just happens to be a romance thwarted by rather more complicated circumstances than we have to deal with now in the age of MySpace stalkers and Valtrex commercials. Winterbottom gives us just enough futurama to chill us, and just enough explanation to keep us from being distracted with “Wait, why is that the way it is” details.

Another bonus for the film geeks, and probably the strongest aspect of the film, is the role played by a very ethereal score, which is actually available on iTunes if you want to get a taste, or like to sit around in the dark listening to music that makes you woozy. (The soundtrack also includes an eye-misting closing selection from Coldplay, Warning Sign, which makes me really wonder: as good as it can often be, is Coldplay music really suited for anything other than soundtracks? Hmmm.)

Admittedly, the performances of Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton are not nearly among the most impressive of their careers (like Sam was all that interesting as the sputtering, pasty telepath in Minority Report); and the plot itself moves kind of slowly, even at times a bit disjointedly, although that could well be quite intentional to reinforce the discomfort of the starring couple’s suspended emotional state. However, the overall audio-visual presentation of the film, and the mood journey of the story, definitely makes this a must-see for anyone predisposed to this kind of flick along any of those three angles: as dystopian sci-fi, as film noir, or just as a well-filmed, frugally-budgeted piece of eye-and-ear-candy that manages to elicit an emotional response, even if a discomforting one.

[Blogger’s tech note: I’m trying something new with this post, giving it two categories to see if I can have it show up on the main page for a limited time and on the sidebar for a longer duration. Hope I don’t break anything.]