The I Inside

I've never liked the idea of test screenings. The changes they make just end up neutering a movie and making it "safe" for the general masses. But if ever a movie needed feedback to prompt a rewrite and alternate ending, this is it.

The first half of this movie is spectacular. It's atmospheric, tense, and confusing (in a good way). It kept you guessing the whole way. Much like Memento, it's an intelligent film that makes you watch closely and think. The story could have gone a number of directions.

...but the last half, it all falls apart. They start changing the "rules", the suspense gives way to straight storytelling, and the ending goes a completely different direction than it could have, and SHOULD have. It's not just that I didn't like the ending or that it didn't match my predictions. The problem is the truth is still unclear and viewers are left confused. Too much is left unexplained.

As it is, the film is wasted potential. A good story and a good movie, but one that could have been so much better with a different ending.

Like with Memento, another film dealing with memory loss, it takes some time to get used to the storytelling. The main reason is that no one explains nothing at first... clues come all along the movie up until the end. You're not taken by the hand and shown anything. Like the main character, you're thrown in the story with no real point of reference and it takes some adjusting.

But that's also what makes the movie interesting. The ending can be perceived as weak if you're watching it like a thriller but if you're looking at it from a psychological point of view, it's really impressive what our minds can do and the mysteries still to unlock in our own brains.

The acting is pretty good (except Piper Perabo who is not good enough to be creepy or believable as anything else than a goodie-2-shoes) and the direction is SUPERB.

Don't misunderstand, the tension IS there so you'll get your thrills but it's not a mystery movie so much as a psychological drama about denial and acceptance. In the end that's all there is to it.

Don't take my word for it... check it out as soon as you can.

The first two-thirds of "The I Inside" are fantastic: very intriguing and engaging, recalls "The Butterfly Effect", "Jacob's Ladder" and "identity", just to mention three similar movies. The situation of Simon Cable resuscitated without memory in the hospital in two different years is disclosed like a puzzle, and I was mesmerized with this film. Unfortunately, it seems that the screenplay writer raised so many weird situations that he was not able to conciliate all of them in a satisfactory ending, and indeed the plot has a very disappointing conclusion. I regret and feel sorry, since this movie could have been a masterpiece of the genre. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Terceiro Olho" ("The Third Eye")

Evidently The I Inside is not due for release in the UK until 2005, but Frightfest in London screened this on 28 August 2004.

This starts off very promising, with Ryan Phillippe's character Simon Cable regaining consciousness in the year 2002 and again in 2000, not entirely sure what he has been doing with his life during the two intervening years. The first couple of "switches" between time-lines succeeded at dis-orientating and jolting the audience admirably, but after some meandering, the "switches" become relatively tedious and gratuitous, and I felt that they did little to further the plot.

The periphery characters all do a sterling job at providing a sense of unease (Piper Perabo is pretty outstanding), but after Simon has "switched" years several times, I found it difficult to retain my attention. By the final denouement, I was past caring, and noticed only with a passing interest that the ending was incredibly similar to another memory-loss psychological thriller from the mid-nineties.

Perhaps I just watched too many films of this sort for my own good? If only I had suffered my own personal memory loss and forget The Butterfly Effect and Jacob's Ladder, then perhaps I would have enjoyed this more.

This is a little seen thriller and it's almost a shame, because it has quite a few good ideas. Some work, some might not work for you, but the overall story is very complex and very well told. It's not a movie, where you could say exactly where it is going. I don't think you could tell unless you had read quite a few articles on the film, which would be a shame.

But Ryan Phillipe does a great job, conveying this complex and very difficult emotional role he has to play. It's not only trying to keep up, where you are exactly (in the script), but in the overall structure of the movie. I know that some think that it does fall short towards the end, and I get the sentiment. But I still think the ending is pretty strong, to still make you rather like the viewing, than not.