Ryan Reynolds (foreground) makes little effort to mimic Ben Kingsley’s mannerisms.
The name Tarsem Singh may be unfamiliar to you, but you’ve probably seen the director’s work, going all the way back to his iconic music video for R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.” He’s made movies that, no matter what you thought about their overall quality, were never wanting for visual imagination: The Cell, The Fall, even his more mainstream work like Immortals and Mirror Mirror.
And yet we have this science-fiction suspense yarn, which begins with a multi-millionaire New York real estate tycoon named Damian Hale (Ben Kingsley) who’s dying of cancer. He’s willing to use his money to destroy the careers of rivals in the interest of preserving his empire, so it’s no surprise that he’s willing to consider using that money to prolong his life — even if that means considering an experimental procedure in which his consciousness is transferred into a new, genetically engineered host body. But when Damian wakes up in his new body (Ryan Reynolds) and receives his new identity of Edward Kitner, he begins to have hallucinations that suggest someone else might have once occupied that body.
Rote conspiracy thriller elements ensue, and the “mystery” of Damian’s new identity is resolved fairly quickly, leaving little more than the visceral effectiveness of a few chase sequences or hand-to-hand combat moments to keep you watching.
That empty space easily could have been occupied by a more interesting central performance, but it’s not clear how much of that problem is Reynolds’ fault. It’s true that he makes little effort to mimic Kingsley’s mannerisms in a way that seems consistent with the way we see other beneficiaries of this procedure behave, or to convey Damian’s supreme master-of-the-universe confidence now that he’s also a physical specimen. Screenwriters David and Alex Pastor seem only vaguely interested in digging into the socioeconomic side of this “business.” Self/less didn’t require a sermon, but it could have used something to anchor the story more firmly as an allegory with a conscience.
It could have used more of Tarsem’s distinctive Tarsem-ness, as well, especially in a story with a similar “living in another person’s mind” hook as The Cell. The look of Self/less remains mostly functional, pushing the story forward without much attempt to expand the concept of a person absorbing another man’s life.
Then again, maybe there’s something metaphorically appropriate about that. If this was ever meant to be a cautionary tale about the human cost of valuing corporate “creators” over those who facilitate that creation, maybe we’re seeing the effects in action. Self/less finds a unique filmmaker’s personality buried beneath something that seems to have no greater goal than continuing to exist.
