ALCANTARA, Clarisse G.

BSA 1-5

The story is set in 2092 and involves the world's last mortal human being, the 118-year-old
Nemo (Jared Leto), who is confused and doesn't know who he is or how old and is being treated
by the tattooed-faced psychiatrist Dr. Feldheim (Allan Corduner). When a reporter breaks into
the hospital room where Nemo is staying in the future and asks him to talk about his life for
posterity. Again, no reason is given why Nemo is being kept away from reporters other than it
appears that he's having trouble with his memory. As he recounts his story (which basically puts
the rest of the film into a flashback), three separate versions of Nemo's life emerge.

The plot revolves around the 9-year-old Britisher Nemo Nobody in the 1980s at a train
station with his divorced parents, with mom set to depart for North America and dad
determined to stay in England. The kid must decide if getting on the train with mom is the right
choice, and this setup is played out throughout showing the kid examining all possibilities and
thereby living out these choices.

In the scenario where he's living with his remarried mom, Nemo's stepsister Anna, is the love
of Nemo’s life. But fate keeps them apart. At a dance Nemo meets Elise and she becomes his
depressed tearful wife, whom he hopelessly loves but her mental illness ruins their relationship.
Then Nemo became a science-fiction writer and marries Jeanne, who is the perfect suburban
wife. But Nemo doesn’t love her despite finding married life comfortable.

Intellectually, the movie seems to hedge its bets, torn between the proposition that what
we choose doesn’t matter and the more movie-friendly implication that different paths might
lead to different kinds of happiness. The repeated demonstrations of the butterfly effect can be
exasperating, as when a homeless woman’s death provides the impetus for Nemo to reunite
with the love of his life, or when an unemployed man boils an egg in Brazil and creates the
condensation that causes the rainstorm that smudges a handwritten phone number.
Impressive production values, costumes, colorful visuals of futuristic cityscapes, and plot
construction do not clear up the pic's confusion about what's going down, which leaves things
unfocused and makes its underlying point about the effects of chance being a major influence
on our life difficult to digest at one sitting.

But the important thing is that I relate to movie by thinking about my past. Mr. Nobody has
me evaluating my future. What if we could experience every possible choice we have to make
in life? The transitions are seamless. Often the realities change through a matching object in
both worlds, but whatever the transition, we know exactly where we are. All of Nemo’s lives
are painful. No matter what he chooses, he experiences heartbreak, death of loved ones, his
own death, and clinical depression. My future seems brighter, but the film makes the strong
point that every experience is worthwhile. The goal isn’t to choose the easiest path. It’s to LIVE.