A topical commentary on the nature of modern global economics

Rating: 8/10 (16 July 2012)

A unique social critique on the current economic crisis, seen from the perspective of both the super rich and the super poor, with no particular resolution on either side of the coin, but plenty of spills and thrills in the process of toying with the metaphor.
In the future, time is currency and when your time runs out, you die. In order for this to work a dystopian federation of zones house the various classes, ranging from poverty stricken ghettos where people live each day as if it were their last (literally) to the mecca of the rich and powerful where possession of hundreds, maybe even thousands of years of lovely long life are the norm.
In reality, it wouldn't work, of course. But it's important, going into this film, to understand the importance of the analogy being made. The dystopia is our own world, rendered in a way we can understand without delving into the mind numbing complexities of global economic logistics. The time-as-currency idea allows director and writer Andrew Niccols to explore the effects of inflation, derivative bloating and hoarding of wealth to show how such concepts affect everyday folk in real life.
The lack of any solid resolution is understandable. There really is no resolution, either within the fictional world of Niccol's screenplay or our own ailing international community where pieces of paper create the same miseries as Timberlake and his fellow bottom feeders are forced to suffer.
Breaking the loop is no solution. The loop describes itself. Pumping our own economy with more cash only increases the problems we face. The problem is not the paper currency, any more than the problem within the fictional In Time world is lifespan. There is plenty of both to go round. The problem is management of a system, choices that are not just difficult but impossible to make from a human standpoint and ethically beyond any decision maker save the cold and cruel logic of a computer.
In Time shows the paranoid, guarded and insular lifestyles of the super rich where wealth is relative to the price of comfort and the comfort wealth affords is undermined by fear of losing that wealth. In turn it shows us the endless struggle of the have-nots, tempered by the idea that suffering and hardship may actually define the experience of living. Something the super rich cannot enjoy within their ivory tower.
Seen from the confusing perspective of the 'Time Keepers', quassi-cops charged with moderating the distribution of life-span, are themselves beset by their own subjective humanity. Missing from the equation, then, and barely explored or even touched upon by Niccol, is the presence of the technology and science that ensures the continuation of the system by sidestepping subjectivity and determining who lives, dies, suffers or lives in comfort without much care for the human condition. This is the only aspect missing, in my opinion, but doesn't reduce the quality either of the movie nor the message Niccol is trying to express. That the system we use to manage the human experience is, in itself, inhuman.