PREDESTINATION: WHAT IF I COULD…

With those words opens the new science fiction masterpiece PREDESTINATION. Based on the short story by Robert Heinlein the movie stars Ethan Hawke as a mysterious man on a mission. Sent from the future he’s part of a group that travels back in time to correct situations that have happened saving millions of lives in the process.

When the film opens he’s walking down a corridor saying asking this question “What if I could put him in front of you; the man who ruined your life. If I could guarantee you could get away with it. Would you kill him?” From there he spots a man planting a bomb, they fight and he’s caught in an explosion that gives him massive third degree burns. When he wakes, he’s in a hospital covered in bandages and told that he may heal but he’ll look completely different.

With this opening we discover the world of the temporal police from the future, who go back in time to prevent cataclysmic acts from happening. In this case it was a bomber known as the fizzle bombers whose last act was the set off a bomb in New York that killed 11,000 people. After healing, Hawke is returned for one last mission since it wreaks havoc with you brain after so many trips. He ends up in a bar where he works as a bartender when a young man comes in.

This is the slow part of the film but sets in motion almost all of the rest. The young man sits in the bar that Hawke now works in. Making small talk he reveals that he is an author of sorts, the writer of the column The Unwed Mother in a woman’s magazine. As the talk, the two men make a bet as to who can tell the better story between the two of them. As the author begins, he lets Hawke know that he was once a woman. This tragic tale involves the young woman’s journey, being left on the doorstep of an orphanage, her time as a youngster with few friends to her being romanced after becoming old enough to leave and then abandoned by the man she thought loved her. Not only abandoned but pregnant as well.

It is here where she discovers she was born with both sexual organs. Due to problems with her pregnancy she was given a hysterectomy but the doctors discovered both sexual organs and were able to make her a man now. As she finishes her now his story Hawke offers his tale, one of time travel. Rather than explain it, he shows the young man instead.

As the pair travel in time more of the story is revealed, slowly unspooling in directions that you think might seem familiar at first but that take a right turn where a left was expected time and time again. It keeps you thinking what’s going to happen next? Not only that but each twist and turn while incomprehensible as they take place makes perfect sense when you get to the end of the picture. It’s brilliant.

The movie didn’t make a big splash when it was released, a smaller film that drew little attention but high praise. That’s sad because this ended up being one of the most original and entertaining films I’ve seen this past year. It qualifies as an artistic and entertainment achievement, something few films achieve.

The film has an expensive look to it while being a low budget picture. The directing is wonderful getting top notch performances out of both leads, Hawke as well as Sarah Snook as the Unwed Mother author. The pacing of the movie seems slow at first but in a good way, like peeling off the layers one at a time to reveal some new piece of information, each one blowing your mind more than the last. By the end of the film you have a very fulfilling story that makes you want to go back and revisit the movie again to see if you could have caught all the clues that were laid out for you from the start. Even knowing those answers I don’t think it’s possible even though they are there.

There are plenty of blockbusters coming out on DVD last week, this week and next but I would highly recommend watching this movie instead. Make sure that you can pay attention to the film from start to finish. Turn off the phone, don’t answer the door and make sure the kids are in bed. You won’t want to miss anything presented here once it starts.

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