FAIL: In Time (2011)
Feb. 23rd, 2012 01:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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bechdel_testIn Time is a futuristic world where time has become currency. While I really liked the movie, and there were many female characters with names, they never speak to one another.
Female Characters With More Than One Line:
Sylvia Weiss - Co-star, female-protagonist. Allowed the most development, undergoing a complete life change, re-evaluating how she lived before and what she can do to help people now.
Rachel Salas - Mother of Will. Shown as supportive and kind. He's going to take her out for her 50th birthday when she is fridged early on to give Will's character a need for vengeance.
Maya - Girl from Timezone 12 (the ghetto). Older male family member (brother? father?) runs a food-kitchen/shelter, only they give out time to the needy. She helps out. The time is smuggled to her and she then distributes it to the people.
Greta - Wife of Will's friend and co-worker. Widowed and left to raise her child alone, blames Will.
Michele Weiss - Mother of Sylvia, allowed a quiet protest asking her husband to pay the ransom when their daughter is kidnapped, she is ignored.
Characters With Only One Line:
Carrera/Jasmine/Ruby/Clara/Kara/Pasha/Sagita/Leila - Background characters that IMDB gives names to. I can only remember one prostitute (selling sex for time) offering the timekeepers "five minutes for an hour". I don't know which woman the timekeeper turned down, as he said her name but I can't remember it.
Timekeeper Ellini - Background policewoman, asking "what do we do now?" at the end of the film. (note: her name is also from IMBD, it was not said in the film as far as I can remember)
I REALLY enjoyed this movie, it was like a futuristic Bonnie & Clyde! It had things that I love: chase scenes (both with cars and on foot), pretty people kissing, sequin dresses, girls with guns, bank heists and Amanda Seyfried with a wicked short, auburn bob, dark eyeliner and ridiculous high heels. (I am biased and have probably seen most movies she's ever been in)
But I couldn't help thinking of ways this film could have passed. It would have been SO EASY to insert a short scene of Sylvia talking to her mother (after meeting Will, but before she is taken by him) because she is beginning to question her lifestyle and could easily have asked her mother some of the questions he's brought up. Did Sylvia ever talk to her mother about how she felt when she turned 25, how she'd look that way forever and the jolt in her heart when her clock started? Does Sylvia miss her mother? Is her mother sympathetic (she did want to pay the ransom)? Do they find a way to communicate after the events of the film? (And if they don't how does that affect Syvlia?)
Sylvia could also have easily spoken with Greta or Maya instead of Will, especially since she was less noticeable.
Another way to fix it could've been done during the casting stage. Every single villian (and therefore people who advanced the plot in major ways) is a white male. I'm surprised tumblr didn't love this movie since it has Matt Bomer, Justin Timberlake, Cillian Murphy & Alex Pettyfer. (Vincent Kartheiser played the role of Sylvia's father but it was just like Pete Campbell x 100) Except for Timberlake and Kartheiser's roles, everyone else could easily been cast as a female or POC.
Matt Bomer's only purpose is to set up the inequality of the classes. He gives all of his time away and then kills himself very early into the movie. I just wasn't sold by Bomer's performance and I would have loved to see that world-weary exhaustion acted by a woman who probably would have suffered more than an affluent rich old dude. I'd probably be more likely to believe her wanting to end it all after living for more than a century.
(The only noticeable POC was a lieutenant's to Murphy's detective, Timekeeper Jaeger, played by Collins Pennie)
Female Characters With More Than One Line:
Sylvia Weiss - Co-star, female-protagonist. Allowed the most development, undergoing a complete life change, re-evaluating how she lived before and what she can do to help people now.
Rachel Salas - Mother of Will. Shown as supportive and kind. He's going to take her out for her 50th birthday when she is fridged early on to give Will's character a need for vengeance.
Maya - Girl from Timezone 12 (the ghetto). Older male family member (brother? father?) runs a food-kitchen/shelter, only they give out time to the needy. She helps out. The time is smuggled to her and she then distributes it to the people.
Greta - Wife of Will's friend and co-worker. Widowed and left to raise her child alone, blames Will.
Michele Weiss - Mother of Sylvia, allowed a quiet protest asking her husband to pay the ransom when their daughter is kidnapped, she is ignored.
Characters With Only One Line:
Carrera/Jasmine/Ruby/Clara/Kara/Pasha/Sagita/Leila - Background characters that IMDB gives names to. I can only remember one prostitute (selling sex for time) offering the timekeepers "five minutes for an hour". I don't know which woman the timekeeper turned down, as he said her name but I can't remember it.
Timekeeper Ellini - Background policewoman, asking "what do we do now?" at the end of the film. (note: her name is also from IMBD, it was not said in the film as far as I can remember)
I REALLY enjoyed this movie, it was like a futuristic Bonnie & Clyde! It had things that I love: chase scenes (both with cars and on foot), pretty people kissing, sequin dresses, girls with guns, bank heists and Amanda Seyfried with a wicked short, auburn bob, dark eyeliner and ridiculous high heels. (I am biased and have probably seen most movies she's ever been in)
But I couldn't help thinking of ways this film could have passed. It would have been SO EASY to insert a short scene of Sylvia talking to her mother (after meeting Will, but before she is taken by him) because she is beginning to question her lifestyle and could easily have asked her mother some of the questions he's brought up. Did Sylvia ever talk to her mother about how she felt when she turned 25, how she'd look that way forever and the jolt in her heart when her clock started? Does Sylvia miss her mother? Is her mother sympathetic (she did want to pay the ransom)? Do they find a way to communicate after the events of the film? (And if they don't how does that affect Syvlia?)
Sylvia could also have easily spoken with Greta or Maya instead of Will, especially since she was less noticeable.
Another way to fix it could've been done during the casting stage. Every single villian (and therefore people who advanced the plot in major ways) is a white male. I'm surprised tumblr didn't love this movie since it has Matt Bomer, Justin Timberlake, Cillian Murphy & Alex Pettyfer. (Vincent Kartheiser played the role of Sylvia's father but it was just like Pete Campbell x 100) Except for Timberlake and Kartheiser's roles, everyone else could easily been cast as a female or POC.
Matt Bomer's only purpose is to set up the inequality of the classes. He gives all of his time away and then kills himself very early into the movie. I just wasn't sold by Bomer's performance and I would have loved to see that world-weary exhaustion acted by a woman who probably would have suffered more than an affluent rich old dude. I'd probably be more likely to believe her wanting to end it all after living for more than a century.
(The only noticeable POC was a lieutenant's to Murphy's detective, Timekeeper Jaeger, played by Collins Pennie)