Weak screen writing but stylish look and directing

Rating: 7/10 (13 November 2011)

I have been a fan of Niccol since I saw "Gattaca". In fact, I have been waiting for him to make a new "Gattaca" ever since. "In time" keeps up to enough of my expectations to keep me engaged until the end, but it is still a far cry from the feeling I got from "Gattaca".
As it is typical in Niccol's screen writing (Gattaca, The Truman Show, Nicole...), the premise is clever: imagine a world where you stop aging at 25, but you have to keep buying time ever since- --and you literally die when you run out. In this world, time has become the only existing currency (eg you pay coffee in minutes), poor people live in ghettos and refill their clock every day, you might be killed just to have a few hours stolen from you, and rich people live in isolated areas and have centuries at their disposals. Niccol cleverly makes the most of this premise, and creates a beautifully uncanny world of dystopian social separation, where familial relationships (grandmothers, mothers, and daughters) are flattened and made ambiguous by the uniformly young look that everybody has.
Unfortunately, the great premise is not followed by an equally well-developed plot, which basically amounts to an underdog of the poor class (Justin Timberlake) being framed for murder, discovering the hugeness of the social divide between the rich and the poor, fighting for social equality, and convincing the rich daughter (Amanday Seyfred) of a time-bank lord to join him in a path of social revenge Bonnie & Clyde style. The plot hints metaphorically at the current social protests, but its simplistic conspiracy scheme (i.e. rich people keep the others poor to make sure the earth is not overpopulated) and its solutions (revolt and rob banks) do not compare to the originality of the premise. Even the crucial elements in the plot (like Sylvia falling in love with Will) are poorly developed. Even more surprisingly for Andrew Niccol, some subplots are entirely messed up---for instance, Will's father's fate is never explained although several characters hint at its importance and Raymond's connections to Will's father remains obscure and unnecessary. Some other characters talk too much and deliver too many philosophical one-liners that explain the director's point of view, but sound unrelated to the character (ie, the gangster's monologue on its role to keep the poor in their condition, or the confrontation between Will and Sylvia's father).
On the good side, Niccol delivers his usually uncanny and stylishly retro look on the future dystopia, unsettling and unnatural beauty, and cold and detached beautiful actors that deliver their lines in a minor mode. The visual of the movie are, in fact, refreshing and beautiful, and I appreciated how Niccol can take a prototypical action movie scene, like the escape on the roofs, and easily adapt it to his own, personal, ghostly style. In fact, the movie was absolutely fun to watch, and Niccol's directorial skills provide the necessary emotional depth where the plot lacks. For instance, the death of Will's mom, which would have been pure trash in the hands of other directors, is intense and dramatic in Niccol's rendition. The line between lyrical poetry and teenage trash can be a fine line, and Niccol's style always veers away from trash and into art. In fact, the scene of Will's mom's death conveys much more social criticism and depth of argument that many useless lines given by the characters. And, in fact, the movie would have been so much better if Andrew Niccol had trusted his message of social criticism to the Niccol-director instead of the Niccol-screenwriter, letting the script free to develop as a story without explaining the metaphor from within.