Num futuro não muito distante, as cidades são rigidamente controladas e o acesso só é possível por meio de pontos de checagem. As pessoas não são autorizadas a viajar a não ser que possuam o salvo-conduto, um seguro especial de viagem. Fora dessas cidades o deserto tomou conta, com os cidadãos sem seguro sendo segregados em bairros pobres.
William (Tim Robbins) é um homem casado que trabalha como investigador de seguros. Quando sua empresa o envia para uma outra cidade para resolver um caso de salvo-condutos forjados, ele encontra Maria (Samantha Morton). Apesar de descobrir que Maria é a culpada pelas fraudes, ele se apaixona por ela. William volta para casa sem denunciá-la, mas não a esquece. Porém, quando o salvo-conduto forjado provoca uma morte, ele é obrigado a retornar à cidade para reencontrar Maria.
I struggle with some of these futuristic dystopian dramas simply because I can never imagine how humanity could ever find itself in the situation where life could really be like this. This one adds an additional, if entirely accidental, Oedipean element to the plot. “Geld” (Tim Robbins) is an investigator who tracks down folks who peddle in fake travel documents. Believe it or not, this is big business in a world where travel is tightly regulated by the governmental “Sphinx”. His latest trip takes him to Shanghai where he encounters “Maria” (Samantha Morton) whom he quickly deduces is behind the forgeries, but he’s too smitten to do anything about it as he embarks on twenty-four hours of activities he might not like to recount to his wife at home. Anyway, back home he goes only for his boss to enquire as to why he seemed to have failed in his mission and to promptly send him back. Was this his plan all along - to be sent back? Well when he tries to find “Maria” again, he discovers that she has undergone memory erasing treatment following her alleged breaching of “Code 46”. He also discovers that she is not quite the random person he had initially supposed, and that the genetics of two into one don’t really go! Essentially this comes across as a curious take on a love story, with Robbins confidently delivering a persona that still yearns for a degree of humanity in the face of an increasingly sterile and prescribed human existence. Morton also delivers well, exuding a certain vulnerability as her character sits on the wrong side of an arbitrarily defined society that discriminates indiscriminately. The plot tries to reconcile some more scientific concepts alongside the emotionally conflicted ones, but that’s where I found it’s wheels came off. It hasn’t quite the convictions to deliver without reaching an uncomfortable compromise that I felt rather let the whole thing down, and boy can it take it’s time as it often feels way longer than ninety minutes. There are moments of chemistry between the pair, and I did like the premise but the over-written and ponderous execution just left me disappointed, sorry.
