Movie Review: Splice

With the recent announcement that scientists have created a synthetic genome and managed to give it life in the shell of an empty bacterium, movies that explore the ethics and dangers of cutting-edge science are very timely. "Splice" is just such a movie. It tackles the issue of genetically modifying human beings, but ultimately becomes bogged down in its attempt to shock.
 
The couple who works together, stays together, apparently. Not only are Elsa (Sarah Polley) and Clive (Adrien Brody) a young loving duo, but together they lead a laboratory of top notch scientists working for a pharmaceutical company. Looking for the next big breakthrough, the team lovingly genetically engineers a giant slug creature with the hopes that it will produce a coveted medicine.
 
The big, bad corporation needs profits more quickly, so they move to adapt the lab to focus on drug production, but not before Elsa and Clive go rogue. Driven by the desire to go down in history as the first to create human-other life, they synthesize human DNA with another species, pop in in the artificial womb, and wait for the timer to beep.
 
They do this with lots of angst, especially on Clive's part. He's not sure it's ethical to create life. (The theft of time and resources from their employer never seems to bother either one of them.) Elsa is driven by competitive passion and an almost maniacal fervor to advance science. As the film progresses, we discover that there are other forces motivating her as well.
 
When time is up, out pops a creature that looks at first like a fleshy bagpipe, then like a hairless kangaroo rat. It has a nasty venomous tail, a humanoid face, and an insatiable curiosity. The newly minted creators manage to hide it from their coworkers (The company isn't only money grubbing, but also seem to have a lot of unused space in the lab. Maybe its bottom line could be improved by a real estate efficiency review.)
 
Clive and Elsa, proud creators of a new kind of life, find themselves in a position they hadn't bargained for. They had considered themselves scientists and trailblazers. They never thought through the next step. Yes, they've created life, advanced science, earned their place in history. But somebody has to change the diapers. The creature, dubbed Dren, is a healthy, vibrant, newborn, female....thing. Like all new parents, Clive and Elsa struggle with feeding the baby, educating her, and caring for her when sick. Unlike the rest of us, they can't refer to a parenting book or Aunt Gladys for advice. Dren is something new and her problems are equally mysterious.
 
Making it even more tricky, Dren quickly grows into a sullen teenager chafing at the need to keep her hidden, which feels like prison to her. With superior strength and a lethal tail, she doesn't just have to wish her parents dead, she can make it happen. Delphine Chaneac does a good job of portraying the wordless and birdlike older Dren.
 
The  most intriguing part of the film centers on the relationship between Dren and her mother. Elsa was raised by a mother along the lines of the psychotic momma in "Carrie," but feminist instead of Catholic. Mommy intended Elsa to be a cold, objective scientist and didn't allow her to play with Barbies or to wear make-up because they were degrading to women. Elsa found this limiting and abusive. As she confides in Dren, "Sometimes girls want to be degraded a little bit." Elsa's mother was all too successful. Elsa sees herself as impersonal, objective, and secretly broken. Outwardly, she refuses  have a child because she wants to be a great career scientist. Inwardly, she's afraid of motherhood. Dren solves both problems. She's a mommy now, but it comes at a cost. Her objectivity melts away as she nurses Dren's illnesses, dresses her in girly dresses, and enjoys her drawings.
 
It all shapes up to an interesting meditation on humans in science, how science is informed by our emotions, hunches, feelings, and histories, how issues so grand as creating life can't be boiled down to numbers and observation notes, how even scientists have souls that makes these questions thornier and more troublesome than we can imagine.
 
And then it goes off the rails.
 
The human drama transmogrifies into a horror story, one that takes the metaphor too far. I won't give away the ending, but if you're brushed up on your Greek tragedies and your Freud, you'll see it coming a mile away. This portion of the film earns the R rating for disturbing elements including strong sexuality, nudity, sci-fi violence and language. It feels creepy and, what's worse, weird. All the nuance is swept away. As the credits roll, you're left thinking "What the Sam Hill just happened?" That's not generally the feeling movie directors-or audiences-are aiming for.
 
"Splice" is doubly disappointing because the subject matter is so up-to-the-second and the first part of the film so interesting. If only the director had stopped while he was ahead.