Time is Money

'In Time' Movie Trailer featuring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and ...

By Joy Bewaji

I imagine a world where time is, literally, money. Where you stop ageing after 25, and after that, with only the mercy of 365 days to go, your life starts ticking away through a glowing green digital clock on your arm.

If you are going to survive, you have to get more time on that clock! It is a time-obsessed world – you spend time, not money. So when you go for a snack, you pay in a few minutes or hours, depending on how bad the economy is. At work, you are rewarded with time, not cash.
That’s the clever premise of In Time, the movie featuring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried.

It is amusing how, even without money, the world is still aptly segregated – the rich has so much time on their hands that they have a swag, a calmness to their strides, and of course, the poor - a disorderly lot, anarchic and restless.

So when Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) finds himself with enough time that would last him a 100 years, he moves from the poor chaotic neighbourhood to the serene wealthy “time-full” New Greenwich society where people do not have to work endlessly just to make enough time to live the next day.

But with a little observation, it is clear he is not part of the crowd. He is spotted by the beautiful baby-doll Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried) who is quick to notice his strides are a bit odd, “like that of the poor,” she says; who have little time on their hands and are at any giving time, in a hurry towards adding an hour or two so their heartbeat does not cease unexpectedly.

Even a waitress at one of the classy restaurants in his new neighbourhood notes how fast he eats, and how inappropriate his clothes are. Apparently, there are some things, even luxury, cannot wipe out.

Will gets really excited and buys himself an expensive car costing over a decade in time, a new wardrobe, and all the while chilling in a “time-consuming” suite in a five-star hotel.  His enjoyment was however short-lived as he was waylaid by Time-keepers (we call them police in our “naira bill” society) who accuse him of the death of the man who had bequeathed him with all the time in the world.

I am quite impressed with Justin Timberlake’s skills on big screen. Not too many cross-over artistes are able to register big in their second career outing. Most of the time, musicians fall flat on their faces when they try to act and so do actors when they grab the mic (just look at all the attempts in Nollywood!).

Justin isn’t taking big bites, he started off with a few cheeky chick-lit easy, sexy, fun parts which, well, anyone with a grain for a brain should get away with, and gradually graduating into parts usually reserved for pros like Shia Labeouf and even perfect can-never-go-wrong actors like Jake Gyllenhaal. He is no Will Smith but he has his edge, and I am rooting for him.

I am not a big fan of Amanda Seyfried, sincerely I would have liked anyone except her to have play that part. She was great in “Red Riding Hood” no doubt, but that’s as far as I have enjoyed her roles.

Vincent Kartheiser (Sylvia’s dad) was a tad bit boring, in my opinion. However, I did love Cillian Murphy (as Raymond Leon) playing the Time-keeper. He was intense, bitter, stubborn with a hunger to drag Justin back to the “time-less” slum, and all of that you can see in his eyes!

The movie gets racy at some point, when Justin gives out time to the poor. And with the help of Amanda, crashing into her father’s time banks and getting enough time for people to live off.

Still the movie falls short of that knockout treat! Something is missing but I am not sure what it is – maybe the scripting should have had more depth, maybe the directing needed more creativity, maybe it is not perfectly glossed.

It drags on clumsily in some scenes. I just imagine what Spielberg would have done with a movie like that. But the best parts for me are the non-verbal parts where you see what time really means:

People clamouring for a few more hours; and the clear difference between the haves and have-nots – how Justin gives a decade to a friend only for him to kill himself at a bar drinking away precious time, something a rich dude like Vincent wouldn’t even give to save his own daughter’s life!

So these days, when I’m stuck in Lagos’ depressing traffic, I think to myself: how much of my life is wasted even though we don’t equate time, in that strict fashion, to riches?

And let’s just cast our minds towards civil service in Nigeria for a second; in a time-controlled economy, there’d be mass funeral every week!
Time is precious!
•   Bewaji writes from Lagos