Splice

We all know that messing with mother nature is wrong and it's pretty clear that sci-fi narratives never miss an opportunity to remind us of that ominous fact. But while it may seem like we've seen and heard it all before, Canadian filmmaker Vincenzo Natali has now found a freshly provocative way to communicate the oft-heard message. Tearing a page from fellow Canadian David Cronenberg's book of delicious thrills, Natali combines sex, gore, and disturbing creatures into an intoxicating mix with his carefully character-driven fright flick Splice.

Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley play geneticist couple Clive and Elsa (their names are a loving homage to a pair of actors from classic monster movie Bride of Frankenstein), who are about to cross a moral line and toss their lives into a dangerous tailspin. When they're told that the pharmaceutical company for which they splice the genes of various animals together in order to fabricate proteins for livestock is planning to leap ahead to the next stage, Clive and Elsa decide to bend the rules. They want to splice human DNA into the mix in hopes of creating a hybrid being who will contain proteins that could eventually be used to harvest cures for a variety of diseases, such as Parkinson's and even some forms of cancer.

It seems like a medical breakthrough just waiting to happen and Clive and Elsa are confident they can make it work, but the corporate bigwig calling the shots wants less genetic experimentation and more bottom-line profit. The plug is pulled on the couple's plans, but Elsa refuses to take no for an answer. She explains to Clive that she simply wants to prove that they can pull it off, so they promptly head back to their lab and crack the genetic code.

Their plan was never to bring the hybrid creature to full term. They simply wanted to assert their genius in their own eyes and then pack up and leave the secret on ice. But an accelerated gestation period leads to the creature attempting to exit its genetically modified womb much earlier than expected. All hell breaks loose in the lab and Clive and Elsa soon have a very big problem on their hands.

The small, pinkish, armless creature is eventually nicknamed Dren and its speedy growth period means that it isn't long before Dren is looking like a young woman and being dressed like one, too. It is here that Splice prepares to enter the post-creation phase of its Frankenstein-inspired narrative. We know that animating the dead and creating hybrid creatures (playing God in general, really) is morally frowned upon and that it's only a matter of time before the characters responsible for such a mistake will have to pay a price.

But Natali, along with co-writers Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor, has far more devious plans in store. At its chilly core, Splice is really a movie about human relationships and what happens when a monster is added to the mix. Yes, the murky morality is key to the whole story, but Natali is as interested in seeing what happens to Clive and Elsa as a couple as he is in seeing what happens to them as individual human beings.

The secretive nature of Dren's existence and the danger of keeping her alive add conflict to Clive and Elsa's relationship, but that's really just the tip of the impending iceberg. Natali wants his story's dramatic impact to reach us on a personal, almost primal level and he lays it on thick. This isn't simply a tale of two people making a bad decision on their way to scientific discovery. This is a story of facing our fears when it comes to human interaction.

Splice explores a variety of angles in the broad spectrum of relationships. Clive and Elsa are struggling with their own problems as a couple (Clive wants kids, while Elsa hates the thought of being pregnant), but the introduction of Dren complicates matters. Suddenly, Elsa finds herself transforming into a loving, protective mother, while Clive rejects his paternal instincts, choosing instead to view Dren first as a mistake and then later as an object of desire.

It is here, in the dark recesses of narrative possibilities that Natali begins to reveal just how far he is willing to go to make his point about human connection. What follows is a disturbing and surprisingly sexualized collection of plot twists that deal with gender politics, parental control, adultery, rape, and even something that borders on incest. Wait, what happened to this being another Frankenstein story? Natali is pretty much fearless when it comes to this facet of the movie, because this is clearly where he puts his big, bold stamp on the story.

Character-driven to its core, Splice never abandons its attention to Clive, Elsa, and Dren, which makes this foreboding what-if tale a deeply personal portrait of love and loss. Brody and Polley deliver solid performances in the midst of the moral mayhem and French newcomer Delphine Chanéac is utterly captivating as the nearly humanoid Dren. Chanéac has to communicate through cooing, clicking sounds and she receives a load of digital and practical prosthetics, including a tail and a pair of grotesquely misshapen legs. Amazingly, she makes Dren come to life as a strangely beautiful creature who is just a few steps away from being human.

Locating and then employing a new way to tell an old story is a challenge some filmmakers truly relish. Nowadays, the story of a character playing God and later having to face the consequences is ripe for recycling. But as opposed to simply repeating what has been done before, Vincenzo Natali shares some big ideas and his dedication to character makes all the difference. Splice is a story of extreme family dysfunction as much as it is a cautionary tale of woe. Such imaginative genre-splicing is what makes this movie so unique and Natali plays to these strengths with perilous precision. Splice does not only occupy the specific space of science-fiction or horror or romantic drama, but rather straddles the divide between all three, which makes this memorable movie a hybrid of its own design and all the better for it.