Cypher

A science fiction film built on corporate espionage. Morgan Sullivan wants out of a dull life. He applies to a large company and is hired. The job is simple: under a false identity he will attend industry conventions in various cities and record the talks. The conventions are genuinely dull. Sullivan takes notes, runs his recorder and goes back to the hotel. After a while he starts to feel strange: nightmares, headaches and moments he cannot remember. At one convention he meets a woman named Rita. She gives him a pill and tells him something: the conventions he records are a pretext, and the point is him. From there the film starts asking whom an identity belongs to. Which of Sullivan's memories are his own and which were given becomes uncertain. The visual choice is striking: the colour is drained almost entirely and a grey and blue world is built. The budget is low and the film solves that with style; the locations are empty, there are no crowds. Jeremy Northam plays Sullivan and Lucy Liu plays Rita. Vincenzo Natali directed; he had made a science fiction film set in a single location before and uses the same economy here. An interesting production for anyone who likes science fiction built on identity and reality. For a viewer expecting action, the film is cold and slow.