Alex Green (played by Stellan Skarsgard), the alcoholic playboy producer in this film says it best during a pitch meeting “That’s the most pretentious piece of sh*t I’ve ever heard.” (That’s not an exact quote but gets the idea across well.) I was interested in seeing this film because of its experimental value, but it saddens me to know I will never get that hour and a half back.
Time Code is four intertwined stories, told simultaneously and in “real time” (meaning no cuts or lapses in time) which each take up a quarter of the screen. We know what to focus on by whose dialogue we can actually hear. The characters continue to keep busy during the time when they aren’t the focus, but there usually isn’t much interesting to watch.
Block one is Lauren (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and Rose (Salma Hayek). I’ve never thought much of either performer before and this film certainly didn’t raise my esteem any. They are lovers but Lauren thinks that Rose is with someone else. Lauren is rich (though we don’t know why) and has been supporting Rose, an actress trying to sleep her way to the top. After putting a gash in the tire of the car that Rose uses, Lauren drives her to an audition. When Rose hops out of the car for a paper, even after several excrutiating minutes of “Look me in the eyes and tell me there’s no one else. You can’t can you? Why can’t you wear a shirt that covers your breasts?” Lauren proceeds to put a microphone in her purse. She waits outside in her limo the whole time listening to Rose, even after repeated attempts by Rose to just be left alone there.
Block two is Emma (Saffron Burrows), the wife of Alex. They have problems in their marriage and she’s discussing them with a therapist, a wasted performance of the talented Glenne Headly. Lots of tight shots of Emma’s sad face, which seems to drone on monotonously.
Block three begins with Alex as he talks to Rose briefly on a cell phone, though she can’t talk because of Lauren being so jealous and they haven’t arrived at the building yet. He eventually saunters into the fourth box, which is the production office of the film he is working (with yet more wasted talent including Holly Hunter) on. Up until he arrives, they’ve been discussing problems of production, his addictions, etc. It felt like this group had been kidnapped and suddenly thrown in a room and been told to talk about film production, as the conversation was consistently stilted.
Following these four connected stories wouldn’t have been nearly as annoying if there was at least one intriguing moment every ½ hour, or at least any plot or character line that was unpredictable. Instead we’re forced to watch one cliché fall on top of another through these extremely stereotypical (and boring) characters. Of course Laura is a paranoid cocaine freak whose main purpose is to chain smoke throughout the movie. Of course everyone is going to look perfectly pressed and chat away on their cell phones and Rose is going to have sex with Alex (in front of a screen that has quite a pornographic film playing upon it) in order to get the part. However, I should note for the male audience reading this that though there is sexual content involved, there’s nothing in the way of flesh to look at. Even when Rose and Alex are doing in front of a pornographic movie, with all of their clothes on.
Everyone seems to lead these banal lives where they talk about each other, talk on their cell phones, be stubborn in their opinion while trying to still be “in”. In fact, even though there are males and females in this film, it really felt as if they were all the same annoying character that you just really want to shoot. The unoriginal dialogue is the same from character to character (though I am a big fan of Stellan) and how they were going to deal with their individual situations or how things were going to end didn’t matter to me in the least after the first few minutes.
The one action I found shocking in this movie is when Laura is smacking Rose silly, not that you really see it but you hear cursing and see swings. It’s not often that you will see women acting brutally towards each other (when not fighting over a man) in current cinema. However interesting this might have been, it doesn’t make up for the $3 I paid for the rental.
I was so angry when the credits started rolling because there were maybe 2 minutes out of 97 that were worth watching. I was almost hoping there’d be some kind of stunt after the end credits though I felt as if I had been put through hell already. I can’t possibly state strongly enough how disappointed I was seeing this film, interesting experiment though it could have been.
Product DetailsOriginal Title:Time Code - Special EditionActors: Golden Brooks - Richard Edson - Saffron Burrows - Viveka Davis - Xander BerkeleyCond...More at iNetVideo.com
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