Manifest Destiny

Quantum computing gives a soldier second chances, eight minutes at a time.

Those of you who decide to catch Source Code would do well to read Michael Crichton’s Timeline as a primer. The initial portions of the book contain a simple illustration of the multiverse theory that is central to Source Code. In eight-minute segments, Captain Colter Stevens of the United States Air force is able to access the past of alternate realities through the neural synapses of a man now dead in a train explosion. Captain Stevens’ mission, and he has no choice in the matter, is to determine the source and cause of this explosion from the data accumulated through iterative returns to the scene of the crime. Ironically, during each of his excursions into the past he inhabits the body of a history teacher, Sean Fentress, whose fledgling romance with Christina (a romantic foil role that Michelle Monaghan must be fairly accustomed to by now), is about to take flight beyond the confines of his Chicago commuter rail.

The film entrenches us quite firmly in the Colter’s perspective immediately. As Captain Stevens slowly fades into Fentress’ body for the first time his bleached white surroundings slowly fade into his new reality. He begins, as we do, entirely unsure of his identity or his purpose on the train, with only a vague recollection of his name, family and rank. And through each of his iterative returns to the train we gather various pieces of information about his fellow passengers and his mission. Slowly but surely these people become both his and our substitute reality and a metaphor for life itself. Every return to base, however, is characterized by a rude shock, sometimes thermal other times psychological. His base reality is callous in its preoccupation with the preservation of its own continuum. The shackles of Colter Stevens’ past keep derailing their attempts to alter to better their future and unfortunately this is entirely unacceptable to them.

Duncan Jones brings to this film the same understanding of the medium he endowed his first feature, Moon, with. His constant close ups of Colter in the base station create a pervasive sense of claustrophobia during each return. Outside of the base, however, it is a glorious summer day and despite the protagonist’s protests to the contrary we yearn to return to the train each time. Jones’ Chicago isn’t Christopher Nolan’s dark city where dangers lurk everywhere from rooftop to alleyway. It is a bright, beautiful town that holds untold treasures for those willing to reach out and grab it. The final time that Colter returns to the train there is a swell, a purposeful crescendo in the background score as if to remind us that despite all its scientific jargon this is still a film of a man who makes a difference through the power of positive reinforcement.