[Review] Source Code (2011)

Source Code (2011) Summit Entertainment In theaters now   Directed by Duncan Jones Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga   Rating 4 of 5

I’ve waited a while to post a review of Source Code because I wanted to publish it after most people that were looking forward to the movie had already seen it. My opinion on the movie may be in line critically with popular opinion (90% Fresh, 74 MetaCritic, 7.9 IMDB), but the reasons I enjoyed it are likely a little more specific than it being a “smart, satisfying, sci-fi thriller (Rotten Tomatoes).”

Source Code presents three different plotlines varying in degrees from straight forward to mysterious. Tackling the various threads in order is probably the best way to do it, so we will start at the beginning.

The first and most obvious thread in Source Code is the primary narrative which most synopsizes of the movie details. To wit: A sci-fi story similar to Groudhog Day (1993) and Deja Vu (2006) where U.S. Army helicopter pilot Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) awakens in the body of another man on a train just before a terrorist ignites a massive  explosion that rips the train apart. Stevens eventually discovers he is part of a U.S. military experiment where he is able to interact within the last eight minutes of memory of a chosen causality in the disaster. He is able to relive those last eight minutes in a vacuum time and again – each time experiencing similar situations while trying to solve the mystery of who the terrorist is in order to foil a larger strike that the bomber plans for the future. Spoilers are sure to follow.

The beginning of Source Code imitates perfectly a Hitchcockian style mystery of mistaken identities and an omnipresent menace that is slowly revealed to the viewer. Even the score by Chris Bacon is, at first, appropriately reminiscent of 50s and 60s era Hitchcock movie scores. During the initial set up of the film and throughout the first couple of Stevens’ eight minute sequences, the viewer is convinced that he or she is experiencing the breadth of a relatively straight forward story.

Slowly, however, the narrative deals less and less with the mystery on the train and begins to focus on the mystery of Colter Stevens himself. Why does he have no memory of the project? Each time the train blows up, he is transported back to a unstable seeming futuristic looking capsule where he interacts on a view screen with military liaison Colleen Goodwin (Farmiga – quickly becoming a personal favorite) who hesitantly explains some of the details of the eight minute memory experimental program. The vague answers Stevens receives with regard to the project causes him to strive to solve the mystery of his involvement as well as identifying the  person responsible for the attack on the train.

It is during this second act that Source Code feels like it could exist in the same fictional universe as Jones’ first directorial effort, Moon, with secret technology and amoral project leaders providing a more profound villain while exploring classic science fiction themes involving the use of technology for the greater “good” versus the freedom and will of an unwittingly involved individual.

Moving on to the third act, Stevens becomes obsessed with not only finding the bomber and discovering the details of his own involvement, but also with saving the passengers on the train including Christina Warren (Monaghan) of whom he has grown fond. A sympathetic Goodwin and the career hawk project leader Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright) both insist that Stevens is reliving eight minutes of the past; that no matter the outcome of any eight minute foray, the past cannot be changed.

It is in the finale of Source Code where Jones and screenwriter Ben Ripley deviate from standard film structure. Normally the story told to a viewer from the detached perspective – meaning events that take place beyond the experience of the protagonist – are considered the “truth;” a behind the scenes glimpse at the larger story that the protagonist can never know. In Source Code, however, subtle hints are provided that suggest that Colter Stevens is not a typical grunt. His familiarity with the terms and theoretical physics involved in the project, even with the less than straight answers he has been given, can the lead the viewer to conclude that Stevens’ own ideas about what he is doing are possibly more valid than the defined scope of the project that was given to the viewer in portions of the narrative independent from Stevens’ involvement. What Dr. Rutledge and Goodwin believe to be an unalterable eight minute sequence that only exists in the dying neurons of the victim that Stevens’ consciousness inhabits, ends up being something else entirely – an avenue into the theoretical many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics as put forth by Hugh Everett in 1957.

There might be some grumbling about the end of Source Code. Maybe some feel the ending is annoyingly happy and the climax does not add up to the “facts” given during the narrative interludes away from Stevens where the viewer is conditioned to believe that what they are being told at those times are the hard facts of the film’s reality. It is with this sleight of hand that Source Code is triumphant with minor brilliance for pays perfect tribute to a genre staple: in space-time, we only understand the most minuscule of what is certainly infinite.

Rating: 4 out of 5