SPLICE – film review

It typically isn’t a good sign when the first word that comes to mind when reviewing a new movie is “interesting”. It’s not saying that your blind date had a “good personality”. In the case of Splice, the new film from Vincenzo Natali, interesting is actually a compliment. While commercials and trailers make the movie look like a derivative sci-fi monster flick, it thankfully ends up being a tense character study that although falls short of being a masterpiece, still remains refreshingly bizarre. 

Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley play Clive and Elsa, two highly respected, rock star-like scientists in the genetic engineering field. Working for a pharmaceutical company, the couple has created organisms that act as breeding grounds for enzymes and chemicals which will one day be used for medical purposes. Not content to stop there, they begin a secret experiment adding human genes into the mix. creating an entirely new species. What starts out as a scientific blunder begins to rapidly grow into a female creature named Dren (a backwards spelling of her creators’ personas) that neither Clive nor Elsa is quite sure what to do with. At the film’s outset the couple is debating whether or not to have a baby of their own, and against better judgment, they begin to treat their experiment as if it were their child. As Dren quickly ages into an adult, the moral lines between science and human emotion begin to blur. Soon, the three are caught up in an increasingly ambiguous relationship leading towards a path of physical and psychological destruction. To say much more would be a disservice to the unique third act plot points, suffice to say that things get a bit nasty and I don’t mean in the gore department.

There are several admirable qualities to Splice that set it squarely apart from other cinematic summer fare. Brody and Polley are predictably fantastic, grounding the story in reality in spite of the genre, which helps to keep the film on track when the kookiness of the plot might have otherwise derailed it. Still, it is Delphine Chaneac as Dren who positively steals the show. Spot-on special effects combine with her deft physicality to create a creature that is not only engaging to watch but also utterly believable. Chaneac elevates what could have been a one-note monster  into a being that is at once childlike and primal. She becomes just as much of a victim as a threat. I often found myself rooting for her in spite of her inherently dangerous nature. It is no coincidence that “Clive” and “Elsa” are allusions to characters from the original Frankenstein; Splice is in many ways a modern retelling of this classic tale. Along these lines, I truly enjoyed the moral ambiguity that Natali (who also co-wrote the script) injects throughout. Clive and Else serve more as vessels for the narrative than traditional protagonists because they often make destructive choices and as an audience, we aren’t asked to support them as much as understand where they are coming from. It’s a welcome change of pace when a film’s principal characters are acutely flawed and not inherently likable. Because the psychology is richly explored for all three characters, though, I was engaged with the proceedings even if I disagreed with the choices being made. Natali’s direction and inventive camera angles combine with some beautiful cinematography to make the film look extremely slick and puts the $30 million budget to good use.

Alas, all is not perfect. While I truly appreciated the uniquely twisted plot developments later in the film that kept me guessing what would happen next (which itself is a treat since I can usually predict exactly where a movie is headed from the first few scenes), the last 10-15 minutes seem misguided. The complex psychosexual tension that the filmmakers worked so hard to create unfortunately devolves into a formulaic fight for survival that doesn’t mesh well with the previously established atmosphere. The unpredictable mash-up of genres deserved a better payoff for its characters than what was given There were also times that I felt the tone was too muted for its own good. The suspense never really simmers; the horror is never all that horrific; and save for one outstanding scene at a press convention, the attempts at humor fall a bit flat. Even though I was overall very satisfied with Splice, I was never on the edge of my seat which is a sizable problem for a thriller, no matter how interesting it ultimately is.

More of a character-based dramatic thriller rooted in science fiction than the straight-up monster movie the advertisements are selling it as, Splice is a modest success that I have no hesitancy in recommending. Despite the last minute foray into bland horror territory, Splice is a refreshing change of pace that refuses to nail itself down to one genre or provide audiences with simple characters and easy solutions to complex moral and scientific questions. — By: Jake Carr