In Time: survival of the richest – or, the politics of darwinian capitalism

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In Time is written and directed by Andrew Nicoll on the basis of a particularly original idea. Imagine a future society in which time is the only currency; genetics has enabled people to stop aging at twenty-five, and from then on they can practically live for ever, as long as they earn time. Everyone has a counter on their arm; it may display hundreds of years, if they are rich, or just a few hours, if they are poor. The latter thus need to work so as to literally make a living, that is they depend on their daily wages to make it to the next day. The first half hour of In Time explores the workings of this dystopian society; at the end of each working day, for instance, labourers are credited with time, instead of money, which they use in order to pay for commodities as common as a cup of tea, or a bus ticket.

One of the most interesting aspects of In Time is that it brings a fictional, albeit insightful, new twist to grandpa Karl’s classic analysis of labour power. He argued that the latter exists only as a capacity of living individuals, who need food, clothing, housing, and so on, in order to sustain themselves; and thus, “the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer” (Capital, Vol. I). Another grandpa, Frederick, had similarly argued that “the costs of production of labor consist of precisely the quantity of means of subsistence necessary to enable the worker to continue working, and to prevent the working class from dying out” (The Principles of Communism).

But in the context of In Time, the working class is dying out, and quite often in the crudest of ways. As the character of the rich Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer) puts it, “for few to be immortal, many must die.” In this society the costs of production of labour consist of fragments of life, in the form of time. Labourers are thus engaged in a race against the clock, the cost of which is their very own physical survival; the value of their labour power is identical to that of their life.

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In Time focuses on a factory worker named Will Solis (Justin Timberlake), whose mother Rachel (Olivia Wilde) runs out of time on her way back from work. Bus fares have suddenly gone up, the credit on her arm is not enough to buy her a ticket, and she can hardly make it on time if she returns on foot; she makes a run for it, only to die seconds before Will can transfer some of his time to her. Will subsequently seeks revenge and leaves Dayton, the ghetto of the poor, for New Greenwich, a suburb of the rich. The film thus serves as a metaphor for a world of strikingly unequal distribution of wealth and power, and polarised class opposition. Unfortunately, it gradually gives up on these narrative premises in order to become a rather conventional action/adventure film.

Will is persecuted by a police force known as the Timekeepers, and in order to escape he abducts Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried), the  daughter of the incredibly wealthy businessman Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser). Will subsequently asks for a 1,000 years ransom, which he plans to give away to the poor. Sylvia eventually takes his side, and joins him in bank robberies, and the concomitant distribution of free time to the people of the ghetto. The film thus incorporates references to Robin Hood, Bonnie and Clyde, and the story of Patty Hearst. In addition, the leader of the Timekeepers Raymond León (Cillian Murphy) adds a touch of Les Misérables to the film, coming across as a sci-fi version of Javert.

For the most part, however, character development retreats in favour of car chases and action sequences. Will, for example, in his confrontation with the Timekeepers and later on with a gang, inexplicably emerges as a trained fighter, rather than an ordinary worker. The affair between him and Sylvia also develops far too quickly to feel natural, and comes across as thin and rushed. Not least of all, the film shares the overt individualism which characterises the action film genre, and I must say that having seen Andrew Nicoll’s similarly dystopian first film Gattaca, I expected much more. In Time is not bad, but it feels very much like a missed opportunity; had it developed its characters further, and relied more upon its original concept, in other words what the businessman Philippe Weis addresses as “darwinian capitalism,” we would probably be talking about a contemporary sci-fi classic.