Code 46 film review

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CODE 46

Described as a futuristic Brief Encounter, Code 46 is a tragic love story set in a world where rules and bureaucracy, rather than people's hearts, dictate their relationships. Code 46 is enigmatic and sparse, with an austere, clinical tone that contrasts starkly with the intense, passionate love affair that drives it. The two distinct temperatures combine to produce a warmth that invites an emotional connection, but its purposefully tailored sense of detachment makes such a bond hard to attain.

Behind Code 46 is the directing and writing team of Michael Winterbottom and Frank Cottrell Boyce whose most recent collaboration was the very different 24 Hour Party People. Having also combined on the western The Claim, it's clear the pair is comfortable and adept at working in any genre. Although set in the future, it's one that is close enough to be recognizable, but with enough changes to make it disconcerting. There is refreshingly little reliance on special effects, instead the emphasis is on the characters. With the absorbing Robbins and Morton forming such a tightly wound partnership, there is little need of technical wizadry.

In a situation that seems all the more plausible in a post September 11th society, Code 46 takes place in a time when traveling is severely restricted and movement requires special documents called "papelles". Robbins plays the happily married family man William whose job entails investigating the source of forged papelles. To assist him he has taken an empathy virus that allows him to know who's lying. When he travels to Shanghai on a 24-hour pass to find which employee at the Sphinx insurance agency has been forging papelles, he meets the spirited Maria (Samantha Morton).

Robbins and Morton make for an unlikely romantic pairing, with their vastly differing heights being only one factor. Robbins embodies a wholesome stability, while Morton exudes more an air of troubled insularity. As William and Maria, they appear to have little in common other than an inexplicable and fierce connection. Their involvement creates problems for William, who knows Maria is the one producing the fake papelles. He conceals her crime and returns home, but he's unable to forget her and when he is recalled to Shanghai, he tries to meet up with her again only to discover she's been arrested, accused of a Code 46 violation.