Splice (R, for disturbing elements including strong sexuality, nudity, sci-fi violence and language.) Dir: Vincenzo Natali
In this film, Splice, Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) are two young scientists who defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment of splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. The said creature, named Dren, forges a bond with both of her creators, but is kept hidden away as she rapidly matures into a dangerously animalistic and increasingly harder-to-control winged-humanoid chimera creature.
This film was nuts. Few films get me emotionally attached yet repulsed at the same time. Director Vincenzo Natali, who had directed the incredibly original sci-fi mind-bender Cube, returns again with an unsettling sci-fi horror, this time dealing with gene splicing and the moral implications regarding it.
The story is engrossing and well-written, logically paced, and takes its time to build up as we follow Dren, rapidly growing from an embryonic creature (that happens to live outside a womb) into a more humanoid creature with a long, stinger-tipped tail and animal-like legs. Clive and Elsa, finding that people cannot find out about Dren (especially the company they work for), decide to keep her hidden in a barn. The emotional, often strained, parent-child bond that develops between the two scientists and Dren is both poignant and creepy at the same time. With use of CG and convincing acting from Delphine Chaneac, the emotional outbursts and her animalistic movements all feel uncomfortably realistic. Despite her freakish nature, she never feels like just some monster or a CG character. She feels human, but really “off” in an uncomfortable way.
I really liked how the film’s theme not only looks at the ethical and dangerous consequences of said actions of splicing, but analyzes the flaws of human nature itself. There are no particularly evil characters in this film, but has characters who progressively do wrong things through an accumulation of small moral compromises, mixed with a dose of self-delusion and personal baggage. The film seems to ask, “If people can’t even deal with their own issues, can they deal with something beyond their control?”
Sarah Polley is great as the ambitious and curious scientist Elsa. She is driven, yet not over-the-top. For sake of science and well-intentions, she is willing to cross legal and ethical boundaries. Part of her past baggage makes her a bit of a control freak, an interesting facet into her character. I found Adrien Brody, on the other hand, rather miscast as Clive. Brody does fine as a romantic lead for Polley, but I can’t really imagine him as a scientist. With subtle movements and expressions, Delphine Chaneac is excellent as Dren.
I’m not squeamish, and particularly not when it comes to sci-fi horror, but here, I found myself at the edge of my seat watching this film. It is unsettling throughout and there are moments of shock and gore. This film will remind one of David Cronenberg’s The Fly, in that genetic-mutation-gone-horribly-wrong sort of way, yet it doesn't feel cliché. Many unexpected and twisted things happen. There were occasional moments where I was cringing in my seat, which was perhaps to the credit of the film's execution. There were couple of scenes that were very wrong in so many levels (it’s definitely not for the kids), which result in their own consequences.
For a film of this genre, this film ponders interesting questions and dilemmas more thoroughly than many in the genre. The film isn't so much about the monster that's in the film, but also the "monster" that reveals itself within people in general. It also looks into parenthood, which can create "monsters" as well. Much like Dren, the film is disturbing in many ways and can be hard to embrace sometimes. It does not, however, change it from being a very effective sci-fi horror. I give this film *** our of **** stars.
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