Time capsule

Rating: 7/10 (31 August 2009)

As the story begins, we are taken to a classroom of an elementary school. It is 1959. The teacher, Ms. Taylor, has given the children a project. It consists in creating something, maybe a drawing, an essay, to put inside a time capsule that will be opened in fifty years. Young Lucinda Whelan sits transfixed as she writes down a lot of numbers, while all the others drew pictures of their favorite subjects.
The scene changes to the present time. At the fiftieth anniversary of the interment of the receptacle containing relics from the past, the capsule is opened. Children get an envelope from their peers of half a century ago. Young Caleb Koestler is given the strange letter full of the numbers written by the young girl. Caleb's father, John, an MIT science professor becomes intrigued as to why such a young person could have written what appear to be a coded message. What he finds out will certainly amaze and astound him because Lucinda wrote a sort of document that has to do with human tragedies that follow.
Alex Proyas made an interesting film in which the real and the unreal live side by side. The story by Ryne Douglas Pearson, who collaborated in the screenplay with Juliet Snowden, gets an excellent treatment by the team led by Mr. Proyas, who is making quite a name in sci-fi features as proved with his "I Robot".
An inspired Nicolas Cage is at the center of the action. He is a no nonsense science man who knows that "@&%#" happens. This is one of Mr. Cage's best screen appearances in recent memory. Rose Byrne was another surprise. She is convincing as the daughter of Lucinda Whalen now living with her own daughter and who knew more than she first tells John Koestler.
Richard Learoy's editing add a new dimension to the film, as well as Marco Beltrami's fine musical score. Cinematographer Simon Duggan captures the fall colors of New England in all their splendor.
Fans of this genre will enjoy "Knowing", a triumph for its director, Alex Proyas.