The People’s Movies Full Review
UK PREMIERE – VOLITION Sci-Fi Thriller
Director: Tony Dean Smith. With: Adrian Glynn McMorran, Magda Apanowicz, John Cassini, Aleks Paunovic. Canada 2019. 91 mins.
James the clairvoyant gets himself involved with dodgy diamonds to pay his rent. When he glimpses premonitions of his own bloody demise he must make choices that would give Einstien a stress migraine. Can he and Elliot, the cardigan-wearing motherfucker, knit together fragments of his future in time to thwart his deadly destiny?
This punchy and streamlined head-scratcher relies hard on twists and reveals. Subsequently, I will steer away from anything that may dilute the pleasure of having your head fucked with, as the element of surprise is one of the flicks main strengths.
Volition does a marvellous job of enticing us along on its curveball journey with economic exposition and breviloquent dialogue. Too many films of this genre end up smashing the audience over the head with science until they are battered into compliance. Whilst the amount of care poured into this project is evident it never ties itself in knots, a massive compliment for a plot this complex. That being said, you will be cut adrift like a spacewalking accident if you nip to the toilet at the wrong time.
The film looks and sounds glossy and polished and the team of editors, and you will see why they needed more than one, do an incredible job of gelling the film. Without their skilful cinematic weaving things could have gone south very quickly.
Thematically Volition is a rich and diverting experience, with moral and ethical conundrums orbiting the central concept of the pliability of fate. The choices finally made by the likeable James, as he seeks to break from the white knuckle grip of inevitability, are compelling and unexpectedly moving.
Movies with this much intelligence and finite logistics are often prone to smug self-aggrandising. They seem to relish the Machiavellian headlock they have inflicted on the viewer, forcing them to acquiesce in the sheer cleverness of it all. Where Volition is crucially different is that it presents its elegant narrative as a case for cherishing the present we live in as connected humans, rather than a celebration of its own hubris.
Volition is an exceptional genre flick with a shit ton of ideas and the limitless heart to express them in a way that charms rather than bulldozes.
[rating=5]
