Splice

Title: Splice
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama, Horror
Starring: Sarah Polley, Adrien Brody
Director: Vincenzo Natali

This is a film about a family; the adopted daughter, Dren, always the centre of attention with the mother, Elsa, intensely caring for it and then becoming emotionally traumatised when she observes reflections of herself in the life she's created, and the worried father, Clive, who despite grave initial concerns about her, ends up growing perhaps a little too close. This would all make for a rather cliché drama about the trials of adolescence when confined by overbearing parents, and the abuse suffered as a result of their worries for their well being, except for one rather major twist: Dren isn't human.

Well, at the least not entirely human, for both her adoptive parents are involved in highly experimental research and development, splicing together various animal components to create an entirely new species capable of producing chemicals and enzymes for use in new treatments and therapies for the curing of disease. After their initial resounding success they started work speculating on the next phase of their operation; modifying human DNA so as to include animal code, theoretically using healthy proteins to cure all manner of genetic conditions, except this wasn't exactly the route their employers had in mind and they were ordered to stop. Created in secret, their project in Dren's creation quickly spirals out of control; her foreign anatomy and only partly predictable behaviour making their own questions on the morality of such an undertaking all the more difficult to answer.

The ethical ramifications of creating a human clone – even one with animal DNA – is a subject that has been debated to death, and whilst still plays a role in this film it never quite takes centre stage. It clearly weighs heavy on the minds of the two scientists, forcing them to hide her away in secret confinement with fear her animal tendencies would result in unwanted attention, but actually its Dren's humanity that seems the most apparent, with the humans displaying an insensitivity to her basic needs. Dren herself shows her naïve child-like tendencies, her simple desire in being let outside, finding love and generally being allowed her freedom. She is right up until the final moments the most 'human' of all three major characters with her adoptive parents frequently demonstrating cruel abuse towards her for fear of their own sake.

Despite solid performances from the two leads, constantly in a game of give and take with their feelings towards Dren, at one minute referring to her as 'the subject' and discussing premature termination of the experiment, and then the next caring for her like a child, it is once more their subject that feels the most impressive. Not only is the movement unusually alien whilst remaining driven by familiarity, the character design itself feels as carefully planned out as anything 'Avatar' could have designed, successfully fusing shy child and tearaway teenager with an indeterminate and unpredictable animal instinct. Even down to the emotional level things are very much apparent and driven by the mute performance from Delphine Chanéac and it is from her that much of the film finds it's well deserved focus.

Instead much of my disappointment derives from the dreadful ending, torn straight from a bad low-budget 'syfy' horror; it's disjointed transition from thought provoking drama into a blood-splattering horror comes across as little more than a rushed way to find a way to end the film. And yet despite my grievances, I went in expecting little more than something of a 'Species' reboot, creating a rapidly growing abomination for scientific purposes only to have it escape and try to reproduce, but it's not. Instead its surpassed that, feeling far more akin to a modernised Frankenstein, where the true abomination is not the creation but the creators themselves, and whilst not without its flaws in the final moments remains a rare sci-fi drama worth watching.