Film: In Time

In Time is a 2011 film starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Wilde, Cillian Murphy and Alex Pettyfer.  It's about Will Salas (Timberlake) trying to change a world where time is currency and the rich live forever.

First of all, as soon as I heard about this film, I was instantly interested, a world where time is literally money brings up a lot of ethical and social issues and I wanted to see how they were handled.  I must say they were handled very well, you can tell a lot of preparation and thought went into conceiving a world like this. 

Two things I particually enjoy about this world is the casual use of time as currency, there were constant references to the price of things, from coffee to bus fare to hotels to casinos.  Second was the fact that everyone in this world looks 25 or under, you can't tell who's young or old, it took me by surprise when Timberlake's character called Olivia Wilde mother, they around the same age in real life.  Another thing about this is we see Philippe Weis's (film's baddie) mother-in-law, wife and daughter (played by Seyfried) together, they all look the same age, it's very freaky!

The film's plotline was simple enough to understand, but it did leave very little to be resolved, a world where currency is time which equals life leaves little to change, the green numbers on their wrist were actually genetic, not technology grafted onto them, so you couldn't deactivate them.  Another thing that concerned me was the main plotline itself wasn't focused on a lot, most of the film was Timberlake and Seyfried's characters getting to scraps and trying to get time to keep them going, but the film itself is over 100 minutes, that's a lot of currency for them!  There was also an unanswered question; What happens when they sleep?  Does the timer keep going or stop?  If you sleep for around 8 hours and the poor can't afford 8 hours, how do they live?  Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

The acting was surprisingly good, I expected Justin Timberlake, a boyband member, to be a terrible actor and was brought in for a pretty face, but he surprised me, Amanda Seyfried was decent and Cillian Murphy was very good.  It was a shame Olivia Wilde wasn't in the film too much and Johnny Galecki (Leonard from TBBT) wasn't in it nearly enough, same with Matthew Bomer (Bryce Larkin in Chuck.)

Sci-fi fans may not think too highly about this film, but it's definitely one to watch.  I recommend this film to pretty much anyone, it will make you think about the social class system, but there's enough action to wet your appetite.