It's good for a while, but then it has to go there.
Writer/director Vincenzo Natali is going for the weird in Splice, and he launches from the perfect platform: genetic engineering. He resists the temptation, though, to make his film a political statement. While genetic engineering is the driving force of the plot, this is not a story about science. This is a story about a screwed-up family dynamic. As such, however, it becomes too unbridled for its own good. The effort here is bold, but it is ultimately impossible to relate to this movie.
Genetic scientist / romantic partner duo Clive and Elsa are trying to find a miracle protein that can cure cancer and Alzheimer’s, save the world, etc., etc. To do so, they have to create a human-animal hybrid. Problem is, that’s pretty illegal, so they do it secretly, create a fast-aging mutant they call “Dren,” and keep it hidden in a cabin. Clive is repulsed by the chirping, bald creature, and wants to kill it. Elsa refuses and takes it on as a child. At first Dren is, in her own way, cute. As she grows, though, she increasingly acts according to her own will. Since she has a tail with a venomous stinger at the tip, this is dangerous, and she becomes difficult to control. As many children do, she eventually hits the full-blown rebellion stage, at which point things go downhill for Elsa and Clive.
There is some inherent horror here, for sure. Dren is part human, part animal, and the crossing of boundaries that occurs in such an amalgamation is naturally abject. However, her place in the Clive/Elsa/Dren “family” is similar to the experience that any child might have. Elsa sees only Dren’s beauty and doesn’t mind doing things that non-parents would find difficult to stomach, like wiping green, mashed-up food from her mouth. Likewise, the problems Elsa and Clive face as they raise Dren are similar to those faced by any mother and father with a newborn. Dren won’t eat, she can’t express what’s bothering her when she’s upset, and when she becomes sick, total panic ensues. Aside from the fact that they have to keep Dren hidden from everyone’s sight, Clive and Elsa experience the same problems any other parents go through upon having a child.
Relationships change, though. For Clive, Dren was an unwanted child, and he treats her as such, finding reason to leave the room that she is in whenever he can and insisting that she needs to be locked away by herself for her own good. However, when Elsa becomes increasingly angry with Dren for disobeying her, Clive becomes increasingly sympathetic toward the being. This leads to an altered dynamic in which Elsa, who had been the loving mother, becomes jealous of Dren, who has attracted the attention of Clive. The family at this point spirals out of control as Dren and Elsa become hostile and violent toward one another. It is a demonstration of how love can be as destructive as it can be unifying.
There is a problem with this development of plot and theme, though, in that it is taken to sickening lengths. Clive’s feelings for Dren eventually progress beyond familial love, and the movie goes where it should never have gone: mutant-human sex. If the relationship had been structured any differently, this would not be so off-putting, but the scene suffers from the fact that not only is one of our main characters having sex with a human-animal hybrid; he is having sex with what is essentially an adopted daughter. Aside from being extremely uncomfortable to watch, this scene affects the rest of the film as we become unable to relate to Clive. Until this point, he may not have been the most honorable father figure, but it was easy to understand his actions, as most anyone in his position would want to distance himself from what many would consider an abomination of science. At the point of the sex scene, however, that changes. Since Elsa by now has gone off on her own semi-sadistic path in her rivalry with Dren, we are left with no point of reference to things that are happening.
The movie loses control from here on out and becomes a generic horror thriller marked only by its unfortunate mutant-human intercourse. Dren becomes dangerous to everybody, so they have to try to kill her. She, of course, fights back. There is little horror and excitement built up, however. Since we have already seen Dren (too) clearly, we do not fear her appearance; since we have seen her kill, we do not fear what it would be like; and since the main characters have gone off the deep end, we don’t care if they survive. Normally films disappoint me when they show too much restraint. In this case, the loss of restraint happens to mark a jarring turn of plot that destroys the more carefully constructed elements of the film. Natali saw his opportunity to break the walls of the acceptable, and he took it, but in doing so, he abandoned the story as he had developed it to that point.
In Splice, Natali covers territory that most directors would never dream of approaching. For that, it is commendable. In this case, however, the stepping into the weird also involves a stepping out of the story's established underlying concept. In one scene, we are morally repulsed and consequently lose our point of reference with the events on screen. What was a sci-fi/horror spin on a dysfunctional family story becomes a display of reprehensible actions and inconsequential attempts at scaring. It could have been worse, though; the movie could have played things too safe.
Sci-Fi Movie Freak: a discussion of over one hundred of the most important sci-fi films of all time, written by Sci-Fi Block Editor in Chief Robert Ring. You will love this book. (Also, comes with a copy of Plan 9 from Outer Space!)
Comments
Your review actually makes me want to see it even more.
I think that the plot seems to be very plausible and the characters' actions very believable and even natural. Pushing away taboo boundaries and suffering sometimes painful consequences is what human beings have always done; when governed by natural ambitions and not by idealistic laws that rise higher than human nature itself, we do such things are these. If art is intended to reflect life, then successful art this is.
I can see your point, but in
I can see your point, but in this case I found the pushing of boundaries to distance me from what the film had tried to do up until that point. It started off as "These are fairly normal people in a super-strange situation" and turned into "These people are messed up in the head."
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