A slew of films are having their world premieres at Austin’s SXSW Film Festival this year, but only one could be chosen to open the Festival up this past Friday evening. Duncan Jones’ Source Code– starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeffrey Wright, and Vera Farmiga– was granted that honor, and everyone in the audience was curious to see if Jones (whose first film, Moon, marked one helluva debut for this sci-fi-friendly director when it played SXSW two years ago) was going to deliver. So, was Source Code as good as Moon? Did it live up to the hype? Is Jones as on-point directing someone else’s script as he is when he’s directing something he’s written? Find out after the break.
Science-fiction fans were thrilled to death with Duncan Jones’ Moon, the Sam Rockwell-starring, moon-based epic that arrived back in 2009. That film featured a tour de force performance from Rockwell, an incredibly clever script co-written by Jones and Nathan Parker, and served as one of the best debuts from a film director that we’d seen in a long, long time. It also premiered here in Austin at that year’s SXSW Film Festival, so when Jones took the stage Friday evening to share Source Code with a packed audience at the Paramount Theater, expectations were running high.
The crowd was not disappointed. On the whole, Source Code is a well-crafted, thoughtful, thrilling sci-fi actioner. There’s no way any film geek worth his salt will tell you that it’s better than Moon, though: pound for pound, Jones’ first film mops the floor with Source Code‘s script, its performances (despite an admirable lead performance from Gyllenhaal), and– most importantly– its ending. In fact, I suspect that Source Code‘s final fifteen minutes are going to be the sticking point for most viewers: either you’re going to go along with it or you’re not, but in either case you’re going to be entertained all the way up until that point. In other words, you should definitely see Source Code when it arrives in a few weeks, but you should prepare yourself for the possibility that you won’t love it unconditionally.
For me, the logic surrounding the film’s ending is more than a minor quibble. Without spoiling anything, I’ll say this: either I didn’t understand something very important about Source Code‘s plot… or the film’s got a massive, Austin-sized plot-hole in its final moments. I’m going to have to see the film again to know for sure, but right now I can’t help but lean towards the latter. And if that’s the case, well, it didn’t ruin the film for me, and Jones can’t be faulted completely: he didn’t have a hand in this script, which was written by Ben Ripley. It should be telling that I’m unwilling to write off the film entirely even though I think the ending’s got some serious logistical issues: the rest of it’s that good.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays a helicopter pilot who goes down on the field of battle in Afghanistan, only to wake up aboard a commuter train outside of Chicago. When he comes to, he’s understandably disoriented: the other train passengers seem to know him, he’s in mid-conversation with the woman sitting across from him, and– most troubling of all– when he looks in the mirror, he sees another man’s face. In short order (eight minutes, to be precise), the train Gyllenhaal’s on explodes, killing everyone aboard…including him. He comes to inside a “pod” of some sort, strapped into a chair and staring at a handful of TV monitors.
On one of the monitors, he can see a scientist played by Vera Farmiga, an Army captain who’s being fed orders by another shadowy scientist-type played by Jeffrey Wright. He learns that he’s part of some kind of experiment, one in which he’s being forced to relive the same eight-minute stretch over and over again in an effort to stop the train from exploding. To say anything further about Gyllenhaal’s mission might risk spoiling plot details, and since I’ve already promised you that I wouldn’t do that, I’ll have to leave the rest of the plot for you to discover. Rest assured that almost everything’s explained over the course of the film (which runs a mercifully brisk 95 minutes-or-so: “mercifully” because seeing Gyllenhaal relive the same eight-minute stetch over and over again starts to get tedious very quickly), and rest assured that the film has more than a few plot twists up its sleeve.
As you’ve probably already heard, Source Code combines elements of Groundhog Day, Quantum Leap (there are a few very clever nods to that series in here: keep an eye out for ‘em), and just about every other time-travel film you can name into a very effective package. Though we’ve seen a lot of these elements before, Jones manages to make them feel fresh and compelling all over again. It helps that his cast is so effective, but mostly it’s Jones’ sense of pacing and his instinct for when to focus on the character-driven moments rather than the more outlandish sci-fi aspects of the story. For a dude that had only directed one feature film prior to this, he comes off like a pro. Time-travel stories are a lot harder to pull off on-screen than you might think (just look at Joseph Kahn’s Detention, which also premiered here at SXSW to plenty of dumbfounded, non-plussed audience members), but Jones makes it look simple.
Everyone involved– from Gyllenhaal to Farmiga to Jeffrey Wright and Michelle Monaghan, who also stars in the film– turns in great work, and Jones shows that he can handle big, loud action scenes just as well as he was able to handle all of Moon‘s quiet, character-driven moments. After seeing Source Code, I have no doubt that Jones has a long, fun career ahead of him in Hollywood, and I can’t wait to see what he does next. That said, I hope that Jones’ next outing involves a script that he’s written, rather than him adapting someone else’s material to his vision.
As I’ve already indicated, the problems I did have with the film rest entirely within the confines of Ben Ripley’s script. Unfortunately, I can’t really get into what I didn’t like (read: didn’t completely understand…or understood completely and believe to be absurd) without revealing some massive spoilers, but I’ll say this: it’ll be interesting to see how audiences react to the film, especially its resolution. I predict that we’ll see more than a few graphs, charts, and long-winded explanations designed to show just how “all that” was possible. This isn’t a Primer kind of situation, where the time travel aspects make the entire film difficult to understand, but there are a few key plot points in that ending that simply won’t add up for me until I’ve seen them explained in a convincing way. I’m very curious to see these explanations.
It may turn out that I missed a vital piece of dialogue, or that there’s something very obvious here that I simply didn’t pick up on. But I’m a pretty sharp cat (it only took me three viewings to almost completely understand Primer), and I fear that it wasn’t that I didn’t “get” what the film was saying, but that the resolution is founded upon some questionable logic. We’ll have to wait and see. Maybe a second viewing will change my mind. I’ll be happy to give the film that second chance.
My grade? B+
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i think it will be good.
my ending to this movie would be that jake get’s stuck in the source code or something goes wrong with the program, which causes jake’s character to relive those last 8 min over an over an over and over ………..
plus in the trailer it looks like he likes the girl and tries to save her.
he wouldn’t mind reliving 8 min with her, i could be way off though.
“As I’ve already indicated, the problems I did have with the film rest entirely within the confines of Ben Ripley’s script.”
I have a real big problem with this statement. You liked the movie but Ben Ripley shares no responsibility for your liking of the movie? It’s truly absurd. Ripley is, in part, responsible for what you liked as much as what you didn’t like.
In this one paragraph, you marginalize the screenwriter’s role to one of maintaining “logic” and not inspiring character or set pieces or influencing tone? Ripley was at the beginning of the assembly line, isn’t it possible that somewhere along the way the answers to your logic questions got lost (perhaps in editing to bring the film down to a reasonably running time or when, notoriously, Jake Gyllenhall takes the screenwriter to his trailer for 12 hour wtf sessions to address his own logic concerns?
I’m not sure you can judge a screenwriter in a review of the film unless you read his script (unless of course you praise him as much as you criticize him).
There are so many hands that a screenplay must pass through before you get to sit down and watch it. Sure Ripley is, in part, responsible for your concerns. But he is also, in part, responsible for your pleasure.
I’m so tired of these positive reviews of flicks blaming the screenwriter. It’s just, I don’t, too easy.
And it was Ben Ripley’s original screenplay!!! He came up with the world out of nothing. And if he didn’t come up with it, well, guess what, you would have nothing to praise or criticize!!
http://www.youscreeniscreen.com
I have not seen the movie, but I have read the screenplay. The idea is high concept and is executed pretty well. This could have been “Deja Vu” or “Jason Bourne in Groundhog’s Day,” but the screenplay managed to keep everything chugging along and not get bogged down in extraneous nonsense. I thought it was pretty promising, but could be ruined by a bad director. Thankfully the film got a really good director and I’m pretty excited to see it, even though I’ve still got sand in my pants chaffing me from “Prince of Persia.”
I understand your quibbles about the ending, but have reconciled them in my own mind. Fact is, the logical leaps required to swallow everything else about the movie are no more credible than the ending.
From beginning to end, the movie is a fantasy–and like all good fantasy, emotionally and even spiritually compelling. If you view the movie as a romance, in the broadest sense of the word–and experience the ending in the spiritual realm rather than the limitations associated with sci-fi–then the ending is entirely cut of the same cloth as the rest of the movie.
After all, what the hell was the ending of “2001″ all about, logically OR scientifically speaking?
Like you, I didn’t fully understand this movie at the first view, but after watching it for the second time, and giving it some thought,
I have come to a conclusion that anything could be explained it this film. One question I had, for instance, that was not clear to me, was how did collins know Derek Frost had a white van? or how is it that he could travel outside the train using sean’s last 8 minutes memory?
I guess one explanation could be that we normally don’t use most of our brain, and probably using “source code” technology, enabled Collins to see details that sean missed even if they were outside of the train. That explains also the scene where collins and sean’s girlfriend left the train at a station they weren’t supposed to be at, where sean haven’t been to in his last 8 minutes. Also the happenings that are beyond whats happening in the train are the result of Collin’s imagination and the details hidden inside Sean’s brain. The ending can also be explained. Of course Collins couldn’t prevent the bomb from exploding and he didn’t, however he managed to create himself a parallel reallity, and in that reallity the bomb didn’t work, and the terrorist goes to prison. In this parallel reallity, Goodwin recieves Collin’s sms while there is another version of him waiting to be used in the first assignment/experiment of “source code”, but not as sean, since in this parallel reallity the train never explodes. The fact that Collins keeps “living” in that parallel reallity even after being unplugged, can be explained by an “act of god”, or perhaps what happens after we are dead, is that we create our own reallity based on what we experienced in our lives on earth and maintain this reallity inside our minds by will and imagination.
I think it is a very good film, because it lets you interpret it the way it seems to you and making you give it deep thoughts. That is why I love films like Source Code. This movie is remarkable. Don’t underestimate it.
You could just say that he died and lived his own version of heaven, or you could think about it. Which is what I’ve done.
I’ll give you my idea. I’ve only watched the movie once.
*Spoiler warning*
As we all know, Colter Stevens was in the military, and died in a helicopter accident. Part of his brain still remained active, although he was more or less brain-dead. The Source Code project allows his mind to enter the last 8 minutes of someone else’s life. He wakes up on a train that is about to be blown up by a terrorist. His job is to find out who the terrorist is to prevent a further attack.
Now, Stevens (in the body of Shawn Fentress, a teacher) relives these 8 minutes, discovering who planted the bomb and where the next attack is to happen. His mission is complete. He is sent back once more, to save the people on the train before being taken off life support. In those 8 minutes, he sends a text message to Goodwin, a worker at Source Code, explaining everything. Now, here’s where it gets complicated.
Stevens was on the train in the early morning. Shawn, who Stevens is inside of, is going to work. Goodwin (or at least a parallel one) hasn’t gotten to work yet. When she gets to work, she receives the text message. It says to tell Stevens “It’s going to be OK.”
Now, during the movie, every time Stevens is back in the capsule or wherever he is, Goodwin says that it’s going to be OK. Thus, proving that she is the alternate Goodwin, because the other one couldn’t have received the text message.
I also noticed, that, in the beginning of the movie, Stevens sees himself as another person in the reflection. When he and Christina are at the mirrored ball (I’m sorry, I’m not sure what it’s called) he sees himself as Colter Stevens.
Basically, he created a new world, where everyone survived. I think.
I think the most important thing to remember is when Goodwin says “everything is going to be OK,” because only the alternate Goodwin could’ve known that. Analyze it yourself, it’s really complicated!
Hola!!!!!!!!! queria pedir su ayuda, saben como se llama el tema (cancion) que suena en el celular de la niña (protagonista) del tren?
BIG MISTAKE ::
the movie is very good,but let’s anlayze something.
all of as saw when steven knew the name of the terrorist which was Derek Frost and thay catched him whith his white van.
The BIG MISTAKE is :
in the end of the movie when steven was in the train lastone He went to save the world and turn off the bumb AND HE CATHED Derek Frost and he made a call to the police. *** when Goodwin received steven’s message she went to Dr. Rutledge office and heared someone telling the Dr. Rutledge that the police have catched Derek Frost in the train.
first of all :: how could thay catche someone in the real world twice????????????????????????????????????
s..c:: If steven in another world**how could steven catche someone in the source code world and in the real world too????
there was an action in the movie,but in the end we did’nt find the answers for this missed story.
What happens to Vera, does she gets stuck in the source code in the end?