Nathan, a brilliant New York lawyer who leads a life of professional success, but his private life is pretty dismal since he divorced Claire, his only love. Until he meets Doctor Kay, a mysterious doctor who introduces himself as a "Messenger." He claims that he can sense when certain people are about to die, and that he is sent to help them put their life in order before it's too late. Nathan doesn't believe a word of this, but soon afterwards he witnesses some disconcerting scenes which seem to confirm the doctor's claims.
That is the general premise, but I took away more from this film. First things first, I really enjoyed the cinematography. The opening scene is absolutely beautiful, with the water and the swan. There are some scenes throughout the entire film that are visually impressive. Loved it.
The subject matter is sad. There are very few, if any, moments of joy in this film. It's about death and dying though, I didn't expect it to be cheerful.
The acting is solid overall (apart from the opening scene- I'm sorry, but if I accidentally hit a kid with my car, I would be flipping out and inconsolable. And if I arrived on the scene of a kid who had been hit by a fucking car, my response would not be a calm "Jesus. ...Call 911" seriously?? I understand remaining calm during a crisis, but one might expect some emotion in such a scenario).
Malkovich is wonderful as Doctor Kay. I will say, in one of his first moments on screen, when he is in the park, my heart literally did flutter for a second. He is just so lovely. His character about damn near gave me an anxiety attack, however. All the talk about death, not being able to control or know the hour of death, etc. STOP. Seriously - I have enough thoughts running wild without getting into the whole mortality thing.
I also laughed during the scene where he first meets Nathan, and randomly says "do you want me to examine you? I'm a doctor" . He is totally serious and not trying to be creepy, because he really is a doctor. Um. I'd like him to be my doctor.
And my boyfriend.
The character, I mean. I don't want the actual John Malkovich to do any doctoring on me (boyfriend is a different story. A 30 year age difference isn't so bad, is it??) . Although, if I ever trip and land on some rogue piece of scaffolding and begin bleeding profusely, I would want him to be nearby to save the day. And he totally would.
I found this movie strangely beautiful. And sad. And a little scary. A lot scary, actually. It brought up a lot of questions about life and death, and the idea of "messengers" on earth being able to know when a person is going to die, was interesting. I wonder if many people would really want to know they were going to die. Well, we're all going to die, but to know it is imminent is a different matter entirely. I wouldn't want to know if it was soon. It is stressful enough just to know that someday it will happen.
I would recommend this movie to anyone, Malkovich fan or otherwise. It's thought-provoking, beautifully filmed, sad, and worth watching.
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