Splice (Natali, 2010)

[Sxottlan]

I'm really not the target audience for something like this, but it also ended up not being the gorefest I thought it would be.

The rock star/child-like attitude of Clive and Elsa is telegraphed pretty obviously (their outfits, their apartment decorations). It actually does go a long way to alleviate my growing annoyance at how badly the couple handles the situation throughout the film: basically how they have absolutely no plan with Dren.

Elsa's motivations for pushing this through have been described as under-explained, but for the most part I like the ambiguity. I personally thought she was just selfish (vain?) enough that she didn't want to go through the process of childbirth. There could also be some self-loathing based on her mother's abuse and resentment towards the childbirth process. Convenient that Dren ages quickly.

There's a transference about halfway through between how Elsa and Clive view Dren. However, I really didn't buy that...

Clive would have sex with Dren.

It would have been nice to learn what other animal DNA was combined with human DNA to make Dren. The ending makes some sense with the foreshadowing set up in the hilariously botched presentation of Fred and Ginger, but the very end just seemed to defy logic... or confirm how messed up Elsa really is.

[balmakboor]

You make some interesting points and I pretty much agree with everything you say. There are a lot of ideas in this movie and they're mostly pursued just far enough to carry the story along. But the story does much along. I have to write a review this evening and I'm sure it will be a favorable one. I enjoyed it as I watched it.

It will take some time to decide truly how I feel about it though. There is just something so inherently conservative about movies that look at genetic science and find nothing but horror. The imagery of the final version of Dren conjures up nothing short of Satan as a result of the couple's playing God.

I too found Elsa's seeming change of character around the midpoint to be odd -- and disappointing. This also led to an ending that felt strangely upside down.

[Pop Trash]

How does this compare to 70s/80s era Cronenberg balmak? Do you think Cronenberg would do a better or different job with the same premise? That's mostly what I was curious about. Sounds a bit like his version of The Fly.

[megladon8]

On our way out the door to see this.

Shall report back sometime this evening.

[Bosco B Thug]

How does this compare to 70s/80s era Cronenberg balmak? Do you think Cronenberg would do a better or different job with the same premise? That's mostly what I was curious about. Sounds a bit like his version of The Fly. Natali isn't as artsy of course, unfortunately. He does embrace theatricality in a Cronenberg-like way, though. The first half of the film is sort of really generic, but he gets more into it and more thoughtful as the film becomes more personal and gothic.

Plot-wise, its not as abstract and weird as any Cronenberg film, but then again the film's painful literalism going about its perverse fable is one of its chief attributes. Actually, that last sentence does sound pretty Cronenberg.

[balmakboor]

How does this compare to 70s/80s era Cronenberg balmak? Do you think Cronenberg would do a better or different job with the same premise? That's mostly what I was curious about. Sounds a bit like his version of The Fly.

I thought more Spielberg (as in A.I.) during the first half. It was like the story of David and Monica with cruel, suspicious dad lurking in the margins. I was actually finding it a great story about a mother's boundless love for her child. Then, mom does a 180 and the movie went off the rails. At its worst, it became a painfully conventional horror/thriller.

[megladon8]

I didn't think mom did a 180. Right from the get-go Sarah Polley is shown as being a controlling bitch. We then get the back-story of her mother and see where these traits come from, and why they become so prevalent when she, herself, has become a mother of sorts.

I thought the film was OK. It had some enormous logical leaps, and I found Brody's character a tad inconsistent - particularly when he has sex with Dren, which I found perplexing.

I really couldn't figure out how the movie wanted us to view Dren. Is she entirely sympathetic, or should we remain terrified of her? Could she ever live peacefully? How did she see the cat - as being its mother, or its keeper?

Inconsistent but still intelligent to a degree.

[Bosco B Thug]

I really couldn't figure out how the movie wanted us to view Dren. Is she entirely sympathetic, or should we remain terrified of her? Could she ever live peacefully? How did she see the cat - as being its mother, or its keeper?

Inconsistent but still intelligent to a degree. Inconsistent is a good way to describe it. I have very little qualms with the premise, feel positively about every step the story goes, etc. but there's some terrible writing in there, like any exposition about Polley's mommy, the revelation about Dren's human DNA, and wtf that's how Polley decides what to name her? lol.

I felt like we were never supposed to be terrified of her (although the film works to keep us uncertain). The 2nd half almost seems to divert completely into marriage drama and family allegory.

But I will say:

I loved loved loved the film's balls-out horror finale. It seriously reminded me of the gothic pleasures of Ti West's The Roost! :) No, maybe, kinda?

[megladon8]

I loved the scene where Adrien Brody tries to teach Dren to dance.

I thought that was a very sweet, human scene. The movie needed more of that.

[balmakboor]

I loved the scene where Adrien Brody tries to teach Dren to dance.

I thought that was a very sweet, human scene. The movie needed more of that.

That was one of my favorite scenes as well. I actually forgave the sex scene because of it.

[Qrazy]

This film started out OK if a little generic and got progressively more stupid as it went along closing with a terrible third act.

[Philosophe_rouge]

This movie was hilariously inept. Emphasis on hilarious.

[Ivan Drago]

This film started out OK if a little generic and got progressively more stupid as it went along closing with a terrible third act.

Agreed.

[Rowland]

I'm seriously on the fence with this one - if I were still using my 1-100 scoring system, this would be a 50 - but it's just barely positive because its sensibilities and intent appeal to me, even if it doesn't quite click. The first half works far better than the second, when it's establishing potentially fascinating themes before Natali fails to really flesh them out in a really compelling manner, Dren is still in her unpredictable phases, and the closing twists aren't blatantly predictable. The best scene is the investor conference, where Natali's black sense of humor is most clearly expressed, but it's the satire of the family unit and relationship politics that is most successful as a common thematic thread throughout the picture; that it's clearly not intended as a straight genre pic is thrilling, until its rote, distinctly unthrilling climax and stabs at pathos sink the third act. Not really satisfying, but a curious splicing of genres that, if nothing else, is distinct.

[Bosco B Thug]

Damn, am I the only one who loved the climax? It was grand guignol perfection, really milking the idea that our protagonists are reaping what they sowed.

That sounds trite, but the salvaging irony of its shit-hits-the-fan finale is that it isn't their "playing God" that makes them deserve it, but their "being human" - that is, the very human paternal/maternal trangressions they just acted out. It's coming after the lull where they think they got away with it - mourning Dren, atoning by the pyre - is what makes its highly stylized hellishness all the more called for.

I'm a bit confused by criticism of the third act, mixed with a general positive reaction toward the film. The third act contains pretty much all of the film's ultimate thematic conclusions, so if you don't think it was executed very well, I'd think the film would be an absolute failure.

And perhaps the film gets stupider as it goes along, but I still think the filmmaking finally gets more interesting once it makes its jump to the farm and gets increasingly gothic-tinged.

[Qrazy]

I'm a bit confused by criticism of the third act, mixed with a general positive reaction toward the film. The third act contains pretty much all of the film's ultimate thematic conclusions, so if you don't think it was executed very well, I'd think the film would be an absolute failure.

And perhaps the film gets stupider as it goes along, but I still think the filmmaking finally gets more interesting once it makes its jump to the farm and gets increasingly gothic-tinged.

Two Words.


Inside. You.

[Qrazy]

But more seriously Bosco, the ending is something that sort of works on paper (ish) in that you're correct the film's themes are all wrapped up, albeit to me in really uninteresting ways. I agree with Balmakboor's thoughts about the conservative and imo in correct approach of a film that treats this kind of content purely as horror. Not only do I think it's a stretch that male Dren would kill all those people and then rape his mother, I think the approach is wrong headed and the execution laughable. All those shots of Dren putting in and out his/her wing/fins were just terrible. I also find it ridiculous that given the length and nature of those wings and Dren's strength that he/she would be able to fly. But personally I think a film examining this subject matter in a horrific light ought to keep the horror on our own fear of the unknown and on the amorality of nature. However, Dren herself should not be horrifying (and at times the film realizes this, she's just afraid and lonely), but she should never be a malevolent creature the way the film treats her. If she's intelligent enough to spell and learn words she's never heard before then even if she does break bad her actions ought to be treated with a bit more respect (in the vein of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein). The film didn't seem to have any sense of the actual nature of the creature it had created. Give Dren more complex emotions and then commit to those emotions. Don't make her only words 'Inside You', blech.

[Bosco B Thug]

But more seriously Bosco, the ending is something that sort of works on paper (ish) in that you're correct the film's themes are all wrapped up, albeit to me in really uninteresting ways. I agree with Balmakboor's thoughts about the conservative and imo in correct approach of a film that treats this kind of content purely as horror. Not only do I think it's a stretch that male Dren would kill all those people and then rape his mother, I think the approach is wrong headed and the execution laughable. All those shots of Dren putting in and out his/her wing/fins were just terrible. I also find it ridiculous that given the length and nature of those wings and Dren's strength that he/she would be able to fly. But personally I think a film examining this subject matter in a horrific light ought to keep the horror on our own fear of the unknown and on the amorality of nature. However, Dren herself should not be horrifying (and at times the film realizes this, she's just afraid and lonely), but she should never be a malevolent creature the way the film treats her. If she's intelligent enough to spell and learn words she's never heard before then even if she does break bad her actions ought to be treated with a bit more respect (in the vein of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein). The film didn't seem to have any sense of the actual nature of the creature it had created. Give Dren more complex emotions and then commit to those emotions. Don't make her only words 'Inside You', blech. Interesting. I could see how making Dren into a typical monster at the end rubs you the wrong way, although for me, it's a commercial concession that doesn't really take away from the moral tale it told previously. Science to take seriously goes out the window (so... it's a tail/dick? Has this occurred in nature??), but I don't know, I think the film had already crossed that threshold beforehand.

You're right, though, I don't quite know what to make of the use of biological sex change in the film either. It's more than a bit of cookie-cutter "Science is weird and dangerous!!!" schtick. And I didn't like how it's used as a pat explanation for sudden animalistic aggression (in both the case of Dren as well as Ginger & Fred), which seemed anti-constructive to the film's subtext about females in power roles. The best defense I can give for that last point is that the film gives an Antichrist-like deconstruction of patterned gender roles only being solidified (and scientific progress indefinitely deterred) by the historical precedent that is human fallibility. After all, Dren's incestuous raping of Elsa is the accumulation of all the transgressive acts previously done towards her: maiming, sexual gratification, whatever Freudian emotional connections are desired to be made from claiming someone as your own to do whatever you want with (giving a little more meaning to the film's tasteless reprise of "Inside you," as a sort of wishful incantation inherent to the human spirit even at its most bestial).

[Rowland]

Yeah, it seems to me that there's an intentional ambiguity regarding what roles nature/nurture played in Dren's metamorphosis, an intriguing creative decision that I didn't feel was expressed as meaningfully or emotively as it could have been. The tragedy didn't really work for me.

[Ezee E]

Splice starts off promising, but sure takes a huge nosedive once it changes locations from the lab to the barn area. Yeesh. Most embarrassing is the sex scene. Completely out of character, and just plain dumb.

[Irish]

Splice starts off promising, but sure takes a huge nosedive once it changes locations from the lab to the barn area. Yeesh. Most embarrassing is the sex scene. Completely out of character, and just plain dumb.
Heh! Talk about similar opinions.

I saw this in the theater and burst out laughing during the sex scene. Waaaay over the top. And yeah, the secondish act (starting with the barn) is where the entire movie starts to go off the rails.

[Lucky]

Like some of you have already alluded to, the movie's biggest fault is mishandling Dren. Any emotional gravitas the film had going for it was lost when Dren began acting like a maniacal predator from a horror film. Meg's right on when he said the film could have used more moments like the dance sequence. They should have clearly developed Dren as an intelligent, naive humanoid unable to mask her animal instinct. Instead, we cheer as her/his skull gets crushed by a rock. There's a delicate line between animal and monster, and Splice couldn't balance that tightrope.

[Skitch]

The best way I can describe this movie is...awkward.

[Scar]

Phermones, people. PHERMONES.

[Qrazy]

Pheromones?

[Scar]

Pheromones?

That would be the proper spelling. Unlike my post.

[Dukefrukem]

The best way I can describe this movie is...awkward.

This is exactly what I was thinking while watching. I thought this movie was gonna be a little bit more horror than it actually turned out to be, but I enjoyed it.

Was the rape scene really necessary? Is that so they can pump out a straight to DVD sequel?