Source Code? I've Seen It All Before...

6am

"I Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher plays on the radio, interrupted by a DJ.

D.J.: Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today...

And another day begins, exactly the same as the last. This is not my typical weekday but the premise for Groundhog Day, one of the greatest movies of the 20th Century. In the movie, Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray) is doomed to repeat the same day over again. One of the beautiful aspects of this film is that the mechanism for this repetition is never explained. It is his fate and our fate, as the audience, to devote our attention to the transformation of his character.

Groundhog Day is a comedy and as a result does not need to subscribe to reality. Source Code is a science-fiction thriller. In many ways its plot is similar to Groundhog Day as Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) repeats the same eight minutes over and over in the lead-up to a bomb explosion on a train. But, like a lot of mainstream sci-fi, it is racked with guilt; it wants to be taken seriously and must explain every element of its plot and make it plausible. If only Source Code had the abandon of its comedic counterpart.

Stevens saw combat in Afghanistan and for reasons I will not disclose, is selected for this mission to find out the identity of the terrorist behind the bomb on the train. He is projected into the body of a passenger called Sean Fentress on that train a la Quantum Leap (google it if you cannot remember), eight minutes before the train explodes. If he does not succeed in finding the identity of the bomber he is has to redo the eight minutes. In between being sent back, he is inside a capsule where he can only communicate via a webcam to Captain Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) who is reluctant in giving him information. On top of this, he has to deal with Sean's friend Christina Warren, played by Michelle Monaghan. Captain Stevens is torn between his actual life and the ties to his father whilst trying to inhabit Fentress' life which becomes his new reality.

Source Code has been compared to Inception but where the latter did not begin to attempt to describe the machine enabling dream-sharing, the former aims to explain the mechanism by which Stevens can repeatedly enter into another person's reality. Upon asking for an explanation of the technology, Stevens receives the (paraphrased reply), "It's quantum physics, parallel calculus, you wouldn't understand." As a quantum physicist (at UCL, where I work on quantum optics, entanglement and measurement-based quantum computing), I relaxed expecting never to hear my beloved subject abused again, at least for the rest of the movie. How naive I was as the scientist describing the so-called 'source code' began comparing a brain to a light bulb and memories as circuits whilst somehow projecting thoughts into a parallel reality. It felt like someone cut out every 'buzz-word' of Scientific American and just went crazy.

A disclaimer: I am not a snob about science in film. I am a snob about narrative, character, cinematography and performance. Source Code is beautifully shot with sweeping aerial shots of Chicago and surrounding Illinois, contrasting with the enclosed space of the train Stevens is projected into and his capsule between missions. This contrast keeps the feel of the film claustrophobic for Stevens so that when he ventures out of either of these two environs, it feels ominous or uncomfortable with resolution only at the end. The use of close-up shots and webcams also add to the claustrophobic and often intense feel of the film. Each action sequence becomes more visceral in some way as to avoid the repetition of the plot.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays the war hero Stevens like you would imagine, and with few surprises. Gyllenhaal is thrown about, shot, contorted, decoded and taser-ed ceaselessly yet his character never really develops into anything other than an abused war hero. It is only really at the end, upon phoning his father, that he demonstrates his depth of character in a frankly emotional piece of dialogue. Vera Farmiga gives another great performance as the naval officer tasked with communicating with Stevens in between missions; she conveys the dilemma between duty as a human being to Stevens and as a soldier. Less satisfying as a character is her boss, Dr Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright) as the scientist behind the 'source code' who delivers the aforementioned regurgitated popular science. Rutledge is portrayed as a self-interested and emotionally crippled scientist (he also has a crutch, the outward symbol of his lack of empathy). The writing of the war hero versus the oppressive military bureaucracy is not new nor particularly insightful and ultimately disappointing.

Whilst enjoying the direction and performances, the screenplay seemed torn between explanation and emotive dialogue so that most attempts at either rang hollow. Groundhog Day almost exhaustively explored Bill Murray's character until his final resolution felt like the right one, thus ending his cycle. Gyllenhaal's Captain Stevens reaches his conclusion brusquely without a natural motivation.

One subject touched upon by Source Code is the Everettian interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. (See the article, "The Many Lives of Hugh Everett III," for more.) In this interpretation, there exist parallel universes where each possibility of something happening exists in its own, parallel reality. Indeed, it is somehow implied that Stevens is made to live another parallel reality. I cannot help thinking that if the screenwriters has spent less time considering reality and more time with the philosophy of 'Shut Up and Calculate,' where reality is not so important, the movie would exploit its full potential.