My mentor and friend, Nitin recommended this movie, Predestination to me recently. Well, thanks to him, now this is my 2nd most favorite movie ever! I gave up on anything related to time travel after reading another devastating story, The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Not only did I read the book, I also watched the movie where Eric Bana and Rachel MacAdams have portrayed the lead characters poignantly. (I think it was during college and I was in one of those moods where when you were sad, you listened to sad songs made the whole thing more dramatic?) The story just makes the lead character suffer and then suffer more until he meets his destiny. And then there were a few inconsistencies that made me feel like may be time travel is a subject that is extremely exhaustive (Well, duh!). And the author might not have delved that deep into it as she could have before she wrote a complex story like that. The sadness and things not adding up pushed me to shun such stories entirely. That is, until Predestination.
Anything with Ethan Hawke in it has to be interesting imho. The movie is about a "Temporal Agent" assigned to take on a public enemy named "The Fizzle Bomber".
As a part of one of his assignments, he starts working as a bar-tender. He gets to listen to the strange sad life story of a customer one night. What ensues is a tangled web of time travel and drama that has an ending you would never expect. However, the story is pretty straight-forward in that, you know what is happening and where it is leading to, this makes it all the way more enjoyable. Straight-forward does not mean simple, mind you. It seems like there is a twist every 15 mins that carefully lead you to the ultimate truth.
It all starts with a man, who "walks into a bar" one night looking like a young ravishing Leonardo Dicaprio and gets chatty with our Agent/ bar-tender. The man writes a true confessions column under the name "The unmarried mother" for a living (True confessions printed in magazines used to be equivalent to the Whisper app today). This man reveals that he was born a woman and explains the circumstances that forced him to turning into a man.
He was born Jane and left at an orphanage where she grows up to be a feisty smart young lady. One day, a man called Mr Robertson visits her at the orphanage and changes the course of her life forever! He meets her to persuade her to join a program, The Space Corp, that among other things, offers her a chance to travel to space with male astronauts. In the middle of the program, Jane is sent back due to a "fight with another girl".
She then takes up work as a "mother helper" during the day and attends college at night. One such fateful night, she meets a man. They have an affair and the man abruptly leaves her after a few months. Heartbroken and willing to change her life, Jane applies for the Space Corp program again but gets rejected again because she is now pregnant with the unnamed man's child. When she delivers the baby, she discovers why she has always been different. The doctor assigned to her explains to her that she had both male and female sex organs but due to complications in her delivery, her female organs had to be removed, essential leading to her to start living as a man. And to add salt to the injury, her baby is kidnapped and she never gets to know who took it.
The bar-tender, at this point, reveals his true identity and tells John he can take him to the man who turned his life upside down, that John can "kill" him without consequences and in turn, John should take over his job, try it and leave if he doesn't like it. He gets them both to time travel with his machine to the day when Jane falls in love.
WTF Moment- 1: On this night, John realizes he is the man Jane fell in love with and had a baby with!
WTF Moment- 2: While John is unable to break it off with Jane, the Temporal Agent steals the baby and goes back 18 yrs to lay her at the door of the orphanage essentially making the baby, Jane and John the same person!
After a few months, the agent appears again in John's life asks him to break it off with Jane because it was time to hear his story. The agent has been designated by Mr Robertson to take on the Fizzle Bomber as his last assignment. His earlier brush with the bomber ended up in the bomb exploding and burning his face. As he struggles to get to his Time Travel machine while suffering serious burns, someone pushes the machine forward and he time travels back to his agency where he gets a facial restructure surgery done and gets a whole new face forced by the severe burns.
WTF Moment- 3: Watch the movie!! Its on Netflix. While I would love to write the entire story here it wouldn't be enjoyable for you. The ending is edge of the seat stuff. And writing about it here will ruin it for everyone.
More on the actors, Sarah Snook has done such an amazing job I wonder why such actors aren't recognized by the academy more. Ethan Hawke has done justice to his role as he usually does (I may be biased towards him because he is one of my favorite actors ever). It is one of those rare movies which catch your attention within the first minute. In this case, the second you see the agent's pupil get dilated at the slight noise (or I don't know if it was a noise or an intuition), you know you are watching a good movie. You know I am giving it 5 stars (Well, duh again!)
Now go watch it before it's gone from Netflix!
Btw, if anyone is interested, my most favorite movie is Juno!
(Image credit: http://www.astronomytrek.com/predestination-2014-explained/)
(PS: Don't let this poster fool you, its not an action movie!)
Anything with Ethan Hawke in it has to be interesting imho. The movie is about a "Temporal Agent" assigned to take on a public enemy named "The Fizzle Bomber".
As a part of one of his assignments, he starts working as a bar-tender. He gets to listen to the strange sad life story of a customer one night. What ensues is a tangled web of time travel and drama that has an ending you would never expect. However, the story is pretty straight-forward in that, you know what is happening and where it is leading to, this makes it all the way more enjoyable. Straight-forward does not mean simple, mind you. It seems like there is a twist every 15 mins that carefully lead you to the ultimate truth.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
A man walks into a bar
It all starts with a man, who "walks into a bar" one night looking like a young ravishing Leonardo Dicaprio and gets chatty with our Agent/ bar-tender. The man writes a true confessions column under the name "The unmarried mother" for a living (True confessions printed in magazines used to be equivalent to the Whisper app today). This man reveals that he was born a woman and explains the circumstances that forced him to turning into a man.
He was born Jane and left at an orphanage where she grows up to be a feisty smart young lady. One day, a man called Mr Robertson visits her at the orphanage and changes the course of her life forever! He meets her to persuade her to join a program, The Space Corp, that among other things, offers her a chance to travel to space with male astronauts. In the middle of the program, Jane is sent back due to a "fight with another girl".
(Image credit: https://projectedfigures.com/2015/03/09/predestination-2014/)
A woman becomes a man
She then takes up work as a "mother helper" during the day and attends college at night. One such fateful night, she meets a man. They have an affair and the man abruptly leaves her after a few months. Heartbroken and willing to change her life, Jane applies for the Space Corp program again but gets rejected again because she is now pregnant with the unnamed man's child. When she delivers the baby, she discovers why she has always been different. The doctor assigned to her explains to her that she had both male and female sex organs but due to complications in her delivery, her female organs had to be removed, essential leading to her to start living as a man. And to add salt to the injury, her baby is kidnapped and she never gets to know who took it.
(Image credit: https://www.hollywoodchicago.com/reviews/24986/film-review-limiting-twists-in-time-travel-drama-predestination)
The man realizes the truth
The bar-tender, at this point, reveals his true identity and tells John he can take him to the man who turned his life upside down, that John can "kill" him without consequences and in turn, John should take over his job, try it and leave if he doesn't like it. He gets them both to time travel with his machine to the day when Jane falls in love.
WTF Moment- 1: On this night, John realizes he is the man Jane fell in love with and had a baby with!
WTF Moment- 2: While John is unable to break it off with Jane, the Temporal Agent steals the baby and goes back 18 yrs to lay her at the door of the orphanage essentially making the baby, Jane and John the same person!
A man becomes a new man
After a few months, the agent appears again in John's life asks him to break it off with Jane because it was time to hear his story. The agent has been designated by Mr Robertson to take on the Fizzle Bomber as his last assignment. His earlier brush with the bomber ended up in the bomb exploding and burning his face. As he struggles to get to his Time Travel machine while suffering serious burns, someone pushes the machine forward and he time travels back to his agency where he gets a facial restructure surgery done and gets a whole new face forced by the severe burns.
(Image credit: http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2019/the-25-best-indie-movies-of-the-2010s/)
(My face after the many twists!)
WTF Moment- 3: Watch the movie!! Its on Netflix. While I would love to write the entire story here it wouldn't be enjoyable for you. The ending is edge of the seat stuff. And writing about it here will ruin it for everyone.
More on the actors, Sarah Snook has done such an amazing job I wonder why such actors aren't recognized by the academy more. Ethan Hawke has done justice to his role as he usually does (I may be biased towards him because he is one of my favorite actors ever). It is one of those rare movies which catch your attention within the first minute. In this case, the second you see the agent's pupil get dilated at the slight noise (or I don't know if it was a noise or an intuition), you know you are watching a good movie. You know I am giving it 5 stars (Well, duh again!)
Now go watch it before it's gone from Netflix!
Btw, if anyone is interested, my most favorite movie is Juno!
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