There’s nothing like the power of love to screw up a good movie about science. Whether it’s miracle medical cures for the mentally ill who just needed to find “the one” (Silver Linings Playbook) or the old chestnut that feelings about people and nature are just better than science and progress (Avatar), there’s nothing Hollywood likes more than to set a scientist up and then tumble him or her into faith with a big old dose of the feels.
What’s amazing about I Origins in a nutshell is that it takes that whole idea and actually examines it intelligently. When molecular biologist Dr Ian Gray (Michael Pitt) encounters the inexplicable in his research, he doesn’t dismiss it as nothing, nor does he suddenly come down with God-mania.
He’s a
scientist, so he scientifically analyses the data and thinks about it in an
intelligent manner – it’s a bloomin' revolution in film-making.
Dr Gray is
obsessed with the eye; so obsessed that he runs around taking photos of
everyone’s eyes while attempting to figure out how the eye evolved. He meets
the beautiful, ethereal and frankly a bit annoying Sofi (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey)
at a Halloween party where she is masked, revealing only her eyes.
Stunned by
their beauty, and doubtless helped by the fact that she randomly decides to
hook up with him, he uses his photo of her eyes to help him find out who she is
after she scampers off without giving him her name.
After some
mild stalking and strange events, he finally contrives to run into her again
and they start a relationship. Unlike the scientifically minded Gray, who cites
disproving the existence of God as one of the reasons for his research, Sofi is
a spiritual all-rounder who happily embraces religiosity from reincarnation to
God.
Sofi is no
wilting empty-headed hippie, though. She challenges Gray’s beliefs with
intelligent arguments and theories.
At one
point, looking at sightless worms in Gray’s lab, she posits the idea that a
God-force of some kind could be like light to the worms – far beyond their
ability to experience but nonetheless real and all around them. She suggests
that perhaps some humans have the sixth sense necessary to perceive that force
in a mutated gene, just as humans in general have the genetic tools for five
senses and the worms only two.
Sofi’s
counterpoint in Gray’s life is his lab partner Karen (Brit Marling), every bit
as driven as he is in their research and logically practical to a fault. When
introduced to his study, she remarks that what the research needs is a Species
0, one that has the gene necessary for an eye but has not developed one. While
Gray reasonably dismissed this avenue of experimentation because of the
hundreds of thousands of sightless species he would need to test to find one
that has that gene, Karen matter-of-factly takes up the task, crossing the
species off one-by-one.
Her answer
to Gray's gentle mocking of her apparently futile quest is simple - “Turning
over rocks and finding nothing is progress”.
These are
the two voices in his mind when Gray discovers something that he can’t explain
and sets himself to figuring it out, which is why the resulting encounter is so
rewarding. Gray is neither the goofy nerd nor the cold, emotionless automaton
typical of popular portrayals of scientists. He's open to life and love and
open-minded about the world. It's curiosity and wonder that are driving his
research and these are the same factors that allow him to chase the
implications of his results, even though he finds them utterly incredible.
In the end, rather than let science or faith “win”, writer and director Mike Cahill leaves the argument up to the audience, with enough evidence in both directions to make proof of either outcome rather unsteady. Either way we can see that Gray's emotions, the part of him that is supposed to ruin his scientific mind, are actually in support of it as they allow him to embrace the spiritual aspect. As often happens in science, most of the value comes from asking the questions in the first place, even if there are no easy answers.
Review first published on The Register.
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