When St. Mary’s Cement wanted to start a quarry operation near my hometown of Flamborough, people were outraged. All that digging and blasting surely risked clouding our drinking water and turning the water table on its head.
But no, St. Mary's assured, that wouldn't happen. Their scientists had done studies that proved it wouldn't happen.
Of course, if there was some innocent truth hidden beneath the layers of Niagara limestone that whispers Don’t dig, don’t dig, St. Mary’s scientists were determined not to find it so the government would say, Dig, baby, dig! And so we should remain suspicious of the company scientists’ so-called findings.
Why this example in a review of a movie on gene-splicing, you ask?
What I took away as the “innocent truth” of Vincenzo Natali’s latest film was that the human factor is part of what makes science flawed. Scientists aren’t sages who unwaveringly hold the lantern up to the universal truth. No, they have emotional problems and nasty childhood experiences, they wear atrocious tweed suits with black cynical-slogan-bearing t-shirts underneath, they hang anime paintings above their beds, and they listen to bad electro music in the lab. Furthermore, they work for evil corporations.
Clive and Elsa are two such scientists. They’re servants of a pharmaceutical company that isn’t any more interested in the betterment of humankind than St. Mary’s was in protecting our drinking water. The quirky and hormone-driven couple conduct experiments in gene-splicing by combining the DNA of several different animals into one organism that will produce special proteins, which can in turn be synthesized and sold as drugs by the company for sizeable profits. Although proud of their initial creations (noisy grub-like creatures reminiscent of the Combine advisors of Half-life), Clive and Elsa want to go further by adding human DNA into the mix. When the company decides to end their splicing experiments, the scientists rebel and go ahead with their plans, creating Dren.
Much of the movie follows Dren’s rapid and grotesque development, which corresponds with the unwinding of Clive and Elsa’s relationship and the revelation of their individual problems. As the film progresses further, we become aware of the classic theme of humanity’s secret inhumanity. Meanwhile, Dren is relegated to the background (literally, a barn) where she skitters around murdering small animals and eerily spelling out three-syllable words with Scrabble letters. We expect her as an alternative to the couple’s madness, but instead she becomes a mirror for it. A film that starts off piquing our curiosity also plays on our anxiety around and contempt for animalistic brutality, which we fear could be part of our nature as well.
In nearly every interview about Splice, director Vincenzo Natali and Sarah Polley (Elsa) emphasize how this film poses questions about humanity’s ability to handle the answers science provides us. But for the audience, Dren is a predictable and generic monster animal. She comes when she’s called, preys on other animals, develops quirky fixations, and has tantrums when deprived of them. No surprises there, really. Instead of gripping the edge of your seat, you want to hit Clive and Elsa with one of their own textbooks.
Splice is an entertaining film--don't get me wrong--but it isn't nearly as provocative as it's "Meet Dren" marketing campaign makes it out to be. Would it have killed Natali to have Dren venture outside contemporary science’s expectations of animals? After all, people do things that biology can’t entirely explain, and Dren has human DNA.
But I’m not going to deny the film’s aesthetic power. The few twists are unremarkable, but Brody, Polley, and Hewlett all bring the same charm to their roles we can always depend on, and there are some visceral scenes sure to stick to you. Overall, Splice makes for a decent horror/sci-fi experience; it slinks, hisses, roars, and gnashes. It just doesn’t stir the pot.
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