Film Review: Code 46 (dir. M. Winterbottom, 2003)

This sci fi love story of the future stars Tim Robbins as "William," an empathic insurance investigator (?), and Samantha Morton as "Maria," the forger he's out to find. He finds her, and then instead of turning her in, they have mad, wild sex. Then he goes home to his wife and son, but can't forget Maria. But Maria has forgotten him, because it turns out he impregnated her, and the two are too genetically close to have mated . . . Maria is a clone of William's birth mother, it turns out, so their coupling violated "Code 46." The pregnancy was terminated by the omni-present govmint and William was excised from Maria's memories.

William reunites with Maria, and they have another fling, "outside." One of the interesting aspects of this film is its depiction of a future world in which there are two classes of people--those on the inside, with "cover," basically papers that say "you have the right to be here," and those on the "outside," the desperate folks without cover. The neat twist here is that one needs cover to be anywhere, so one can have cover in one's hometown, but not cover where you are or want to go, which means that travel to population centers ("inside") becomes impossible without govmint approval . . . Maria's crime is forging papers (here called "papelles") for those who need cover to do things that the govmint, called "the Sphinx" here, won't permit. (The suggestion is that the govmint is a kind of supercomputer that treats its subjects like a nanny treats her charges, paternalistically but sternly.)

The "Man" tracks William down, and now his memory is wiped. He returns to his wife and son, never knowing about his brief love affair with Maria. Maria narrates, as she is now stuck outside, with her memories.

This is a fun movie, worth a look if you like films with a dystopian theme. The film is beautifully done, looks great, although the future doesn't look that different from today.