We are presented with a future world in the movie, In Time, in which time has become so precious that it has now become currency. Somehow, our bodies are born (or implanted with a device) that begins ticking when we reach the age of 25 so that those who work get paid in time and have to buy their necessities like food and rent using the currency of time.
There are also time zones (don't think like what we have -Eastern, Central, etc., but different parts of a larger city), segregated communities that you must pay time to get into. Just think of gated cities within a much larger city - this is a way to keep the very poor out of (what can only be assumed to be) a middle class or upper class time zone, because the more Will pays as he heads towards the wealthiest part of town, the price continues to go up. So, in essence, there still is free passage among the city, but only if you can afford it. But since many can't afford it, the poor are stuck in their slums.
The movie focuses most of its time on poor characters who are working day-to-day and struggling to survive. When wages go up, the prices of goods go up, so there's no real way for the poor to get ahead. And of course, in such a dog-eat-dog world, there are also gangsters who try to steal peoples' time - the Minutemen. And when the clock runs out on someone, he/she is dead. Even the timekeepers, the police of this dystopian society, are barely paid decent wages in order to stay alive. Sadly ironic, the ones that are entrusted with enforcing the system don't get paid enough (sounds familiar). In addition, the police are interested in the suicide of one wealthy man yet there are tons of murders in the ghetto everyday. Where does this society's priorities truly lie? In the preservation of the monopoly of time by one particular class.
The rich, on the other hand, are trapped in a different kind of gilded prison (think of why Henry gve Will almost all of his time before he died and let his clock expire). Philipe Weis thinks that this time as currency thing is just the next step in evolution - that it is unfair, he says, but so is evolution. With decades, even centuries on their clocks, they continue to look the same as they did when they were 25 even though they might be 107. The one creepy Freudian thing is when Phillipe Weis introduced his mother, wife and daughter (Sylvia) who all looked very similar. Sylvia and Will hit it off and that's when Sylvia said that all the wealthy needed to do was stay out of trouble and they could live forever. Play it safe = live forever. So, unlike Will who lives by the phrase, "Carpe Diem", Sylvia never took chances until she met Will.
Your job for this blog is to 1. apply at least one philosopher or philosophic concept to any part or parts of this movie that you find apply to this movie. 2. Find a weakness in the movie, whether it be in the plot, concept, etc. and explain why. 3. Tie in the Through the Wormhole episode we saw w/ the movie and any of the concepts introduced in the episode. If you missed the episode, get some notes from one of your classmates.
Due Friday, May 17 by class. 350 words total for your response.
