Two years ago, I was heading from Oregon to New York. As a week of Pinot drinking was slowly seeping its way out of my sweat glands and gradually returning my retinas to their inherently white color, the seven hour, two-part flight was a bit daunting. However, things began to look up as I arrived at PDX and was offered a seat in first class – on the first leg of my trip – for a minor sum of money. Since checking a bag is recently the equivalent of leaving luggage on a Manhattan street corner and assuming no one will steal it, damage it, or micturate on it, I rarely do it, thus leaving me thirty five dollars to apply toward the upgrade. Nice.
First class was fine, though kind of like viewing the Mona Lisa. Nothing against Di Vinci. The painting is stellar, though its reputation suggests it should be a work that makes me wonder why my life has been so insignificant and inspires me to paint something equally stellar or become a street-preaching demagogue who starts a new religion. (Gingerism! Featuring scripture by Bog’s right hand: Ron Howard, usually referred to as St. Opie.)
However, the painting is 30×20 inches, and the dame’s a little homely.
Likewise, first class is more comfortable than coach, but it’s not a temperpedic mattress with a goose down comforter.
Arriving in Cleveland, I knew I had coach to look forward to, but since it’s only about an hour and fifteen minute flight, I figured I would make do. The memory of comfortable first class seats cosseting each buttock would not fade on the concrete slab of 23A. Unfortunately, the benefit of first class is the amount of space between you and the other person, and from my single experience, I can say that the peacefulness – more than likely because there is less to complain about. 23B housed an elbow-gesticulating-woman whose introduction was “Hi I’m Mary, and I’m scared to death of flying because I’m scared to death of dying and I become very anxious on flights every bit of turbulence makes me say ‘Oh God’ what’s happening I am definitely a white knuckle flyer do you have any gum?” Luckily, her bulbous husband was there to settle her down by saying “Ha! It’s so true. Do you have any gum?”
Needless to say, the next hour and forty-five minute flight was stellar. (thirty extra minutes in a holding pattern because of inclimate weather – see a euphemism for incompetence.)
The second half of Splice re-conjured this memory, and when the credits rolled, a rogue wave of phantom pains from the Coca Cola that Mary spilled on my jeans during a fit of unwarranted nervousness tickled the hair on my upper thigh.
Beginning with a promising premise, Splice offers a look at the perils amid the genius accomplishment of genetic engineering. Interestingly, the perils are not served as purely moral or ethical amuse bouche – though they exist – instead, a number of the perils tackled are the interference of beaurocracy in a capital-driven industry where cells need to be replicated and diseases need to be cured to satiate the hungry pharmaceutical companies.
Likewise, Clive Nicoli and Elsa Kast (Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley) give fine performances and make the characters – initially interesting. Often, the stigma of a horror or suspense movie is one that fosters thin 3×5 card characters who have transparent personalities and speak in cheesy pseudo-dialog one-liners – see the most recent regurgitation of Friday the 13th. Their dynamic as a couple is also intriguing in that Clive wants to eventually have children, and Elsa does not because “it’s not [his] body” that has to change. This is a fine infusion of a contemporary female conflict that posits the physical, capital-generating body in conflict with the physcial, child-bearing body of women. Posing an alternate hypothetical, Elsa suggests they wait until men can bear children, but Clive refuses to entertain this. The scene is shot well enough to inject humor, but underneath it suggests that Clive wants the responsibility – or labor – of child-bearing just as much as Elsa does; it’s just convenient that he doesn’t have to partake in it. This scene adequately foreshadows the creation of a multi-animal/human hybrid that Elsa takes upon herself to impregnate while Clive is locked outside of the test room, banging on the door, pleading her not to do it.
We are now travelling at an altitude of thirty five thousand seats and have turned off the seatbelt sign. Please feel free to move about the cabin.
At this moment, the desires of both characters are ultimately fulfilled inasmuch as Elsa obviates carrying and birthing the child and Clive technically gets to be a father. At the same time, the creation of the being – later named Dren – ultimately symbolizes the need to be capitally successful and world-renowned. As Elsa asserts earlier in the film, not just anyone lands “on the cover of Wired.”
Dren’s birth is initially a complication because neither Elsa nor Clive thought that it would gestate to full term. When it does, a living thing is introduced into the equation. Since it starts off looking like an armless kangaroo with a groundhog-like face, there is little concern. However, it eventually – and shortly because of rapidly multiplying and aging cells – begins to look human, which fosters an emotional, maternal attachment on the part of Elsa.
Good afternoon folks. If you will all please return to your seats, we are going to begin our decent shortly.
This emotional attachment is compounded when Elsa erases “it” from conversation and replaces it with “Dren,” which immediately categorizes the being as human. Here, the audience is still a bit uncertain what to think of Dren, and a bit uncertain what think about Elsa as well. Somewhere in the interim, Clive’s nosy brother stumbles upon this experiment, and the couple needs to find somewhere to store Dren; clearly, the best option is an old farm house that was owned by Elsa’s apparently crazy, abusive mother who never let her play with dolls, which is where the audience discovers that Elsa is a touch unstable and as Clive brilliantly exposits toward the end of the film just in case no one got it: “you did this for yourself!”
Sorry about that folks. Just a little bit of turbulence as we head toward the runway. Should be on the ground in just a few minutes.
Prior to Clive’s exclamation, Dren becomes a rather cognizant, and evidently attractive little multi-animal/human hybrid who develops a sexual attraction to Clive after witnessing her first primal scene of Elsa and Clive having sex – impossibly by the way—on the couch. (I don’t want to get into the impossibility of the sex scene right here, but when you watch the movie, you’ll be wondering how two people wearing jeans can have sex while the woman continues to wear jeans.) That aside, Dren’s attraction to Clive is illustrated to the audience through various drawing that she has done. Nothing is explicit, but she has only drawn Clive, which puts Elsa in a bit of a jealous rage. Here somehow, there is also a connection being drawn between Dren’s rejection of Elsa and Elsa’s rejection by her mother. While these could be parts of the same whole — or at least a fine model for the Electra Complex – it just seems a bit of a stretch, as does Elsa’s subsequent retaliation to amputate the end of Dren’s tail – the part with the claw-like stinger.
Well folks, welcome to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. If this is your final destination, the luggage that hasn’t been lost will be located in Baggage Claim, Carousel C. For those of your traveling on, please enjoy wherever your final destination may be.
While not on board with the whole gestation of a full being issue to begin with, Clive feels ethically battered when he walks into the impromptu operation, hears Dren’s scrannel cry, and sees the houghs of her knees flexing against the leather restraints that fasten her to the table as Elsa removes the end of the tale. At this point, Elsa’s characters also reverts to that of a scientist, and her sole focus is on synthesizing the living proteins found within the recently amputated flesh.
So, how does one get back at a scientist girlfriend who seems to have lost all concern for another living being? By sleeping with the multi-animal/human hybrid.
Hi I’m Mary and I’m scared to death of flying…
And in both my airplane story and Splice, this is where I was praying for an explosion, an asteroid, a civilization-swallowing chasm, a bigger palm to plant my face in. First off, Clive has sex with the creature. He’s not attacked or raped. After a moment’s resistance, he kisses Dren and then becomes the dominant figure. Fine. She has wings that emerge when she’s all hot and bothered, and she’s cute…kind of – and available, but why? What rationale could a screenwriter possible offer? They try. They really do. At one point, there’s a rather diaphanous excuse made when Clive states, “it’s your DNA [inside Dren] I can tell.” How?
Excuse me, Mr. Crick, could you please explain the superficially visible qualities of DNA?
The truth is, there is no practical reason for Clive to be the aggressor. Something interesting might have been if the screenwriters played on the whole “survival of a species angle.” It’s been done in Species, but at least it made a bit of sense, and in each scene, Sil was the aggressor. The men were just shills. Here, Clive becomes the aggressor, and there is no rationale.
To follow this up with more absurdity, Dren changes sex, so guess who she goes after. Yep. Prior to this, Clive’s nosy brother re-emerges to help them find her. How? Well, he has brought the movie’s symbol of uber-evil-capitalism, and justifies it before dying by saying “it’s the only way.” What is “it”? This is never explained, and the capitalist ultimately has nothing to do with capturing, killing, or selling Dren to a travelling circus. In fact, because they have no impact, the word “only” should also be stricken from the script, because clearly it is not.
I can only conclude by asserting that the unveiling at the end of Splice has all the charm of a burning Volkswagon stuffed to the brim with a dozen clowns.
DYL Mag Scale 7 (first half)
DYL Mag Scale 4 (second half)
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