Synopsis
I decided to first watch this movie because the concept behind it interested me. I think that there are a lot of places you can go with the concept of having drugs that can alter a person’s emotions in drastic ways. The beginning clip of the movie had me asking several questions and caused me to be excited for the adventure I would go on watching this movie. From the jump, Steve (Chris Hemsworth) would claim that they were doing all of this to help people but it was very clear that there is a motive under the surface. Steve’s personality lead me to believe that he was a psychopath fairly early into the movie. It was clear that he had a way with words and he would use this to get people to do what he wanted. This is shown when he mentions the committee and how they made all the decisions. He made it seem like he had no say in the matter when in reality it was all him. As for Jeff (Miles Teller), his reasoning behind participating in the experiments was that he saw it as his way to redemption. Jeff was constantly told that his action would lead to millions of lives being saved.
The experiments were all centred around love which had me believe that that was what Steve and Veraline (Mark Paguio) were attempting to create. A drug that could cause you to love even those truly lonely would be able to experience true love. While the experiments were conducted Jeff and a girl he shared duties with at the facility named Lizzie (Jurnee Smollett) started to fall in love. So while Steve was trying to forcibly create love between two people Jeff organically fell in love with someone. Jeff would be given a dose that made him love Heather (Tess Haubrich) but outside of the experiment Jeff had no feelings towards Heather at all. I wonder what the effect of the drug would have been if the experiment was done between Jeff and Lizzie.
An experiment goes bad, which ends with Heather cutting her own neck and Jeff being partially responsible for it. However, through the chaos of the event, Jeff was able to go through the notebook that Steve has been using to document his findings. This is when Jeff discovers that Steve’s whole committee story is a lie and that all the experiments are leading up to something big. This newfound distrust causes Jeff and Lizzie to be against the whole Spiderhead facility and wonder if living at State would be better. Jeff ends up confronting Mark about the things done in the facility and the true purpose of it all which causes Mark to break down. He ends up confessing to what they’ve done which means he is all for whatever plan Jeff comes up with. The next day Steve uses his knowledge of the relationship between Jeff and Lizzie to get Jeff to administer a drug called Darkenflox to her. Throughout the movie, Jeff has been against dishing this drug out because he first hand has felt it. Jeff, Lizzy, and Steve have a back-and-forth about whether Jeff should do it which he decides not to do. However, Jeff does end up using the same drugs to affect Steve. They get into a big fight and Steve ends up giving Lizzie a huge dose of Darkenflox. Jeff rushes to take the drugs out of her while Steve learns that Veraline called the police to arrest him, so he makes a run for it. Lizzie and Steve also decide to make a run for it. Steve ended up dying in his escape while Lizzie and Steve got away.
Interpretation
Throughout the story, we were told the different backstories of several characters. The interesting thing about their stories is it all involved someone doing something bad to someone they loved. Which coincidentally is the true purpose behind the Spiderhead facility. Steve’s ultimate goal is to create a drug that will make people follow any command even one they don’t want to do. And the thing people don’t want to do most is to hurt a loved one. As for the philosophical core of this movie I can’t figure out what the writer was trying to convey. Maybe he was trying to show that the people we love are the people that we tend to hurt the most or that love is not like the other emotions where you can force it on someone. Other than that I did find the story to be interesting but I did think that the ending was lacking in terms of bringing all the ideas together to make a cohesive movie.
