By Matt Harries
Space; the final frontier. Or should that be inner space? Will the quest for human evolution take place beyond the confines of the earth or will we discover new limits to our potential here on the shores of our birth? This question of human kind’s evolution might just be one of the questions The Signal is asking, but I wouldn’t like to say for sure. In the end although it pays lip service to the kind of unanswered questions that define so much science fiction, this is a film which certainly likes the whiff of these big questions more than any meaningful attempt to answer them.
The story follows three young friends engaged in that favourite cinematic pursuit, the road trip. In this case the dynamic of the threesome is that they are best friends, although Nic and Haley are an ‘item’ whereas Jonah and Nic have their own thing going on – namely the pursuit of the mysterious hacker known as Nomad. They have had brushes with this shadowy figure in the past and when he appears to be tracking their movement through road traffic cameras this is too much for Nic and Jonah. Their hackers pride and curiosity piqued, they decide to trace this elusive nemesis and discover his identity for once and for all.
Their search leads them to another favourite cinematic trope; the abandoned house. As Nic and Jonah move through the dark building in wavering beams of torchlight, they hear a scream from Haley, who chose to wait in the car. One of the most arresting moments of the film soon follows, as the sound of struggle drags their frantic gaze from side to side in the night gloom. Haley’s body is flung through the air toward them like a rag doll. This startling image marks a complete change in the film’s narrative; a paradigm shift leading to a quite different semblance of reality.
Enter the dependable authoritarian cool of Larry Fishburne, as Damon, a scientist of some kind at a somewhat hokey research installation replete with lumbering be-suited scientists, stopped clocks and crummy old tech. Fishburne is in ‘Morpheus’ mode – almost maddeningly calm in the face of the now wheelchair bound Nic’s confusion. For all that Nic’s body has failed him, his mind is still sharp and searches for some way to escape, his desire fuelled by the sight of Haley lying unconscious and alone in a bed in a different part of the labyrinthine facility. Soon he discovers Jonah is in a nearby cell, and by communicating through the air vents they devise a method of returning to the surface. But which reality awaits them if they can escape?
You’ll be unsurprised to hear that the world above ground is not the same as the one which our intrepid trio travelled across at the film’s beginning. Having passed through the dull sterility of the laboratory they are indelibly changed in more than one way. Yet while Nic struggles with the physical changes forced upon him, and Haley continues to drift in and out of lucidity, there is a kind of comfort in the desert land they travel through. Comfort in the sense of the familiar quirkiness so often bequeathed to denizens of big sky territory – vaguely sinister trucker types chewing on greasy gristle, folks given over to wide-eyed religious fervour – something of a cliched sub-Lynchian vision of the desert through which Nic and Haley struggle.
The road trip; the abandoned house; the crazy desert folk. Although The Signal flirts with deep thinking it certainly doesn’t mind doing so from relatively well-worn vistas. This has the effect of making the film a parade of scenarios which play into the strengths and weaknesses of low budget cinema; relying upon the inherent dramatic frisson of a photogenic teen gazing wistfully from a car window, or a 360 degree horizon under the sky’s cerulean dome. It feels like an independent, low budget film, regardless of its narrative focus; detached cool, picturesque young stars and the achingly modern lexicon of the hacker with a moral conscience. Fishburne lends gravitas as scientist-in-chief Damon, his character alternating between dry authority and placatory impotence, as well as utimately being the fulcrum upon which the understanding of Nic wavers.
I have reservations about The Signal, namely that it seems unable to decide if it wants to wrestle with some fairly weighty existential ideas or defer to glorifying superhero-like powers. In the end it is a bit lightweight, a bit predictable in some of the ways it frames the story – yet there is something quite likeable about it all the same. Brenton Thwaites as the driven Nic is suitably intense, ably supported by his youthful co-stars Olivia Cooke and Beau Knapp. Fishburne’s heavy-eyed, measured delivery is perfectly placed in the context of the film, and veteran Lin Shaye provides a memorable cameo. This is a film which contains some good talent and a few names to watch in future works, but ultimately may prove a bit too lightweight to demand repeated viewings.
The Signal is in UK cinemas from 27th March before hitting DVD on 13th April, from Entertainment One.