directed by Andrew Niccol
Today, I’d like to remind you about this film, which, in my opinion, has been slightly forgotten, yet it’s one of my favourite sci-fi productions. When it comes to sci-fi, I’m not a big fan of fancy spaceships and fighting with aliens. Instead, I’m a fan of dystopian stories and anything that makes me reflect on our future as humans. That is why, “In Time” is absolutely my thing because it follows a rather simple idea, yet very thought-provoking. We’re moving to 2169, where people do not age anymore. They stop getting older at the age of 25 and for the rest of their lives they look the same. Fun, huh? Well, not really. In the future, people do not earn or spend money – they spend their own time. Each person has a timer on their forearm and whenever they need to pay for something, they pay with their minutes or hours. As you can imagine, the poor have very little time, while the rich have whole centuries to spend. The poor live from day to day and die very young, while the rich can basically live forever without even checking their timer. The character that we follow is Will (Justin Timberlake), who is doing a simple job and lives as if today was his last day. One night, at a bar, he meets a rich guy who has a lot of time, which obviously catches attention of the poor. The man is being chased and Will literally saves his life, for which the stranger thanks him by giving his time away. Will wakes up the next day with way too much time on his timer and decides to go to New Greenwich, the zone of the richest. The man knows that they are controlling time so not everyone can live forever. Sounds like some changes have to be done in this matter… And that’s the kind of story I like the most. Simple idea, yet terrifying at the same time. Nowadays, we have money. We go to work to earn money, which later allows us to pay rent, buy food and enjoy our life. The more you earn, the better your life is. However, if you think about it, even now our currency is time. I mean, you probably work 8 hours a day to later have money to get yourself a meal and buy a new shirt. So that meal and that shirt cost 8 hours of your life. To me, this concept is incredibly creepy, because I know that I cannot run away from it. I have to pay with my life time in order to survive, just like the characters of this film. Taking a bus and having a coffee with a friend cost my life. Okay, before you start having an existential crisis like me, let me just assure you that this film is definitely worth watching. It’s full of action, a bit of drama, but most importantly, it leaves you with topics for reflection. I’m actually curious whether we will get to such point as humanity – paying with our time. When a poor person is asking us for money on the street, we don’t realise that this money may actually save their life. Imagine that in the future, such person may approach you showing their timer with several minutes left to live and ask you for your time. What would you do then?
My rating: 8/10
S.
I have nothing to watch 