Mum's Monday: Knowing

This film is a clever ‘Time capsule- Adam and Eve’ type film. At the beginning some school children are asked to draw pictures to be put into a time capsule at their school, this is to be opened 50 years later. One child Lucinda (played by Lara Robinson) deemed to be an outcast to the rest of the class, she instead of drawing a picture, she lists numbers upon numbers.

We now jump to 50 years later when the time capsule is opened, Caleb Koestler (played by Chandler Canterbury), John Koestler’s son gets handed this list of numbers. John Koestler (played by Nicolas Cage) is confused and sets out to find out what it all means. By some fluke with his coffee cup and realising some numbers relate to 9/11, he works it out with help from the internet. The list of numbers are dates, number of casualties of each disaster, including 9/11, earthquakes and the hotel fire which claimed the life of his wife, Caleb’s mother.

 and then all the action starts.

There are 3 more dates at the end of the piece of paper that haven’t happened yet. The first 2 turn out to be a train crash on the New York subway and a plane crash just before the plane crash which happens at the same place John is located along a road, he works out the set of numbers relating to coordinates of the locations. The plane crash special effects are spectacular as we see this jumbo jet coming over, in trouble and very low before crashing on cars in the road in front of John and coming to rest in a fire ball at the side of the road. This is done in one long take, which I think is epic in itself and well-acted as many of the stunt actors are on fire when they escape the plane wreckage. This is I think an extremely brave and dangerous undertaking to do this in one long take because of the nature of the scene. The weather is over cast and raining which adds to the effect of the scene. The 3^rd and last set of numbers have the letters EEEE… after them trailing off. John is trying to work out what this means and tracks down the school teacher Miss Tayler who was there when the time capsule was buried. He wants to find out more about the little girl Lucinda who wrote all the numbers. With her help he finds her daughter Diana (played by Rose Byron) and granddaughter Abby (also played by Lara Robinson). Diana doesn’t initially want to talk about her late mother who committed suicide.

Having Lara Robinson play 2 characters is not unusual and helps with the realism of the film. As how many times have we heard the words “they look so much like their Mum’s, Dads and Grandparents”, or other relatives. This is a very good casting as one child playing two different children from the same family works, as not only would they have the mannerisms apart from the clothing they would also look alike.

Now we come to find out what the 3^rd and final set of numbers including the Es mean. John is an astrophysicist and through the persistence to talk with Diana and the knowledge gained through his job. They both work out what the Es mean everyone and the disaster is a solar flare emitted from the sun which is going to heat up the earth and ultimately destroy it. 

Throughout the film Caleb and Abby both hear whispering and it looks like they are being stalked by strange men. This I feel gives the film a feeling of being a spooky thriller and I was left wandering where they fitted in. it turns out that the men were aliens and came to earth to rescue a select few. Then they can return when the earth is renewed and start the population again as in an Adam and Eve vibe. I thought this as we see Caleb and Abby at the end of the film in a field making their way towards a tree in the background. Just like in the information we have on Adam and Eve when they approached a tree in the garden of Eden. The idea of the film is clever and original, but I was slightly disappointed when the aliens revealed themselves as it turned into another film with aliens at the climatic moments of the film. It didn’t feel necessary to include the aliens in; if the story focused purely on someone predicting the end of the world and someone hunting down the mystery, and ended with the destruction of the world, it would have been in keeping with the original idea with an added realism and not just another science fiction film with aliens.

This film came out in 2009 and was set at the end of 2009 and I remember approaching the date and the weather becoming warmer as it did in the film. Although the film is fictional, with the families and the aliens. The sun does emit solar flares from time to time so this disaster could happen. I couldn’t help feeling slightly nervous with the odd feeling someone somewhere wasn’t telling us something. Luckily the date passed without the end of the world which is an extremely good thing.