Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams maintains surprisingly good production values throughout - even if "The Commuter" starts with a great snapshot of contemporary, budget British life, with Tesco kitchen stuff all over the place, and a renewed tea-bag, fresh from the bin. In fact, this opening is a great snapshot of the parts of British life I remember - even if I was only there for a week - and only stayed in a hotel, where I kept burning my knee on the heated towel rack every time I sat on the shitter.
The mention of a week is a pretty good one, because this story goes exactly where I thought it was going to go based on its title. A woman asks to buy a train ticket to a station that doesn't exist. Is she perhaps not commuting through space, but both space and time? And so begins my hypothesis of what this little movie is about.
And so it continues to unfold. Bitter-sweet and interesting. Beautiful shots and sets. Magnificent colour theory and costumes in every scene. This episode is a real sophisticated visual spectacle as we follow Ed the character who is our guide through this strange little story. He works at the railway - and the woman keeps coming back. He investigates and finds himself in a new place.
"Am I ill, or are you a symptom of my illness?"
What a line, too. The dialogue in this episode is full of impact. I don't want to spoil, and I won't, because this is a heart touching, human story, woven beautifully into the science fiction genre where everything isn't entirely what it seems.
What starts as a simple story gets deeper and sadly, sadder as common elements repeat day after day. It isn't a Groundhog day, but it is more than the sum of its parts.
The performances are incredible. Timothy Spall as Ed is fantastic. Hayley Squires, while playing a minor character a waitress, delivers a chilling scene that belongs on theatrical stages, not the small screen I watched this on.
Memorable. The fact that Spall's character, Ed, worked at the railway adds more layers of meaning to this story - trains are great metaphor for determinism, and it seems that this story almost (but vaguely) paints determinism as some sort of unseen monster, lurking in the shadows. I like that. A lot. It is something that is not easily done in fiction - and it isn't said at face value - but it is there, in the layered narrative.
I am gushing at the dramatisation of this story, and I haven't even read the story. But I have watched this movie adaptation, and I definitely will be tracking down the story. The Commuter made me feel genuinely hopeless for the future, something that really, literature, Art, and cinema can do.
Well, there are other things that make me feel genuinely hopeless for the future - but this is not the place to discuss them.
Philip K Dick is a masterful storyteller, and the screenwriters, actors, and entire cast and crew behind The Commuter have left an excellent legacy and told a powerful story in a powerful new way. This is a poignant, layered narrative, and well. Stop reading here. Go and experience for yourself.