Splice (2010)

Studio: Copperheart Entertainment | Gaumont Film Company
Distributed: Dark Castle Entertainment |Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. | Optimum Releasing | Madman Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date:June 4, 2010)
Director: Vincenzo Natali

Review by Joy Anne Icayan

Splice stars two hotshot scientists on the verge of groundbreaking genetic discoveries, blending animal DNA to manufacture genes that may be used to treat human diseases. Because it is the scientist's role to be revolutionary, to push boundaries of science, they decide to mix human DNA and document the process and the product. The part-human mutant named as DREN grows up, hidden from their institution and from their lab colleagues and learns to observe them in return.

The science aspect is inaccurate at best and rather flimsy for a scifi flick set in the 21st century. A friend remarked how the overuse of foreshadowing has made the film quite predictable. DREN, the science experiment, looks on as a couple have sex on a couch. The two primary mutants shaped from DNAs of different animals, Fred and Ginger kill each other during a science conference. Ginger apparently, has turned male. All this is almost irrelevant (and quite funny) and makes the whole DREN versus humans all the more predictable later on.

Splice succeeds most as a morality play, questioning the aspect of humanity itself. What makes us human after all--DNA, learning, human affection, how much of a combination of these? When does it go awry? The characters shift from calling their creation it and then she. There is also the evolution of emotions throughout the film, from the male character's disgust to affection. We see the woman cradling DREN as if she were another child, then slicing off its tail after. And we have to ask, do they love it because it is almost human, or because it is their creation? And there is the ambition, both professional and that of a deeper personal kind, which is all too human and which dares to sacrifice even something precious as the love of another. "Is this even about science," the male character asks, after discovering why DREN is extra special. It is--and more, it is about what he tells her in the best scene of the movie, their confrontation in their apartment. "We fucked up," and we know, not merely as scientists but as individuals who gambled on something they couldn't quite handle, about the loss of control, about when what is human fails, when professions of love cannot keep a monster from flying off the roof and killing people.