I’m really torn about this movie. I liked it, but part of me is ashamed to say so. Make no mistake, this movie is not for everyone.
Here’s the story: Elsa (Sarah Polley) and Clive (Adrian Brody) are biologists working for a pharmaceutical company called Nerd. They are also in a relationship with each other. In their search for cures for the world’s worse ailments, they decide to secretly take an existing experiment further, and splice animal DNA with human DNA. The result is a creature called Dren. Nerd backwards. How clever. They take care of it as if it were their child/pet. The creature grows at an accelerated speed, which means that in a few short weeks, they have a full grown human animal hybrid they can no longer control.
The thing about his movie is you’re either going to hate it because it’s crossing some moral boundary most people have, or you’ll be able to accept the fact that it is just a movie, that this creature could probably never exist, and appreciate the remarkably original and twisted story. I’m in the second group.
Sure, what they did was messed up. However, ask yourself this: Can you accept the first part of their experiment, which is to splice together a bunch of animals in order to obtain a miracle cure? If so, why is that OK, but to add human DNA from a willing donor is wrong? Why are humans a more valuable species than any other on the planet? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone what they did in the movie. However, there’s been a lot of backlash about how immoral this movie is, and how they should be ashamed of themselves. I assure you, the consequence of these scientists actions is not lost on them. There is no happy ending here.
It’s a science fiction. It crosses a line that most people will not be able to handle. There are things I saw in this movie I wish I could erase from my memory, things that really pissed me off. It was still a really good movie. I think you need to be of a certain mind set PLUS have a certain level of intelligence to appreciate it. I’m not saying if you hate this movie, it means you’re stupid. Perhaps you weren’t able to look past what was in front of you and don’t care to. That’s fine, and you’re entitled to your opinion and beliefs. Therein lies the mindset I’m talking about.
Now I feel I should share some disturbing content in this movie. I knew this going in, and I feel it helped me cope. I’m being a little dramatic on purpose here. This was really messed up. Adrien Brody has graphic sex with grown up Dren. Dren is not an alien. She’s about as far from being an alien as you can get. Dren is made up of about 6 or 7 animal DNA parts, and one part human. So, this is pretty much bestiality. There really is no other way of looking at it. I don’t care how cute she was, she can breath under water and sprout wings, she’s an animal. Some people said this was incestuous, but his DNA was not used to make up the Dren creature. There is a little non graphic incestuous rape scene near the end. I wish I could forget that.
If these things are too much for you to handle, and will make you unable to appreciate the rest of this movie, don’t go. If the thought of human testing is too much for you to handle, don’t go. Rest assured however, these people don’t ride into the sunset holding hands and singling show tunes. In fact, the end is quite disturbing.