INTRODUCTION
Alright, so Limitless is a 2011 thriller film based off the 2001 techno-thriller novel by Alan Glynn originally titled The Dark Fields. Now the premise is centered on a failed writer getting his hands on some mystery drug, NZT, which stimulates brain activity and organizes thought, memory, general cognitive abilities to a superhuman degree, spring boarding him into a fast track to success and wealth. The drug turns out to cause mental instability and dependency. If you haven't seen it yet, it's on Netflix, the cinematography is interesting to watch, the story is well paced, its failing is in the final one minute scene, so overall a decent interesting bit of fiction. I wouldn't watch it again, but it wouldn't be a horrible way to spend an evening.
BREAKDOWN
This story is reflective of a classical Deal with the Devil, or Faustian bargain story archetype. This archetype is characterized by a character making some sort of deal and giving up something that represents an essence of their self for diabolical or inhuman powers, traditionally ending poorly for the protagonist.The film has been mirrored to Daniel Keyes's novel Flowers for Algernon, a wonderful bit of fiction that deals with the super stimulated intelligence, but plays more towards the alienation of genius. At the climax the protagonist has obtained so much knowledge he has surpassed not only all his peers but the experts in each field of knowledge, reaching a level of understanding where he simply cannot communicate with others. Like an adult in a world of infants he simply beyond understanding by those around him and his peers inevitably isolate and even fear him. Because of his unique position his love interest becomes unattainable and he predicts his fall long before it starts. A beautiful interpretation of the Faustian archetype, and my comparison of where Limitless went wrong. Here is where most people stop me, 'but Limitless wasn't based off Flowers for Algernon, it's based off another book.' and there my rebuttal was then there was were that book went wrong. But with my top-notch reporter researching powers....
In the ending of Glynn's novel the protagonist hasn't found some way out of the hole he has dug himself into, he's at the and of his rope when he notices the same drug stimulated eyes in a televised address from the president. Bringing the story full circle, the curse continued. And yet still, until the last minutes of the film, Limitless had the potential to be the better interpretation. It's very rare when a trans-media interpretation of the source material has a stronger narration (if only slightly) then the source, but it happens.
CLIMAX
Essentially what happened in Limitless is the conclusion of the film didn't support everything else the narration had built up to. Bradley Cooper plays just-dumped looser turned confident respond-to-your-argument-before-you-finish-your-sentence, kind of cocky know-it-all well and has a great supporting cast that make the story and situations believable. The cinematography is pretty darn great at representing how the mind of a super genius might see and interact with the world. At the moment the drugs effects start to go haywire and his world of infinite potential start to crumble around him, he's forced to expose his secret to the girlfriend he had won back (arguably the reason he starts using in the first place). She tells him she can't stay with him anymore as long as he's on the drug. That this ability and level of confidence wasn't the man she knew, it's not him anymore. His humanity was lost. A tone reminiscent of Flowers for Algerenon's ostentation of genius starting. And it looks pretty strongly like a classic Faustian story turn, where the character's actions have inevitably turned his life against him. This builds to the climax and confrontation with his Russian Mob loan shark friend pretty well. Eddie (Cooper's character) is back on the ledge of his high-rise apartment, where we were introduced to him in the first scene, and rethinking the past few days where it all went wrong. He's lost the love of his life, his job, and soon to be his life, but he prevails.
Surviving his debt with the mob and addiction there's a flash forward and Eddie goes onto become a politician and running for Senator, obviously still under the enhancing influence of NZT as of this point the conclusion is still acceptable. We've seen none of the characters from his former life and it's plausible to say that as up and running politician Eddie has accepted a life of ostracization from common living and sacrificed the normal life for his future of "limitless success" while behind the scenes doing everything he can to sustain and keep his drug dependency secret. And it looks like that's how it's going to end up... right up till the point when we see him going to dinner with his love interest. She looks at him after he speaks to the waitress in Mandarin and he innocently asks, "What?" with a smile on his face before the credits roll. Now if you're seeing the issue, a paragraph or so ago we established the part where his love interest says she can't stay with him while he's on the drug because while under its effect he is fundamentally a different person. The man she loved was not capable of the level of manipulation or the kind of acts the protagonist has had to do to keep his super human ability.
If the final scene had been, say, Eddie having a dinner with no one in-particular or not at all then coming back to sleep in an empty apartment/hotel room, it would have had carried the powerful ending tone the entire film built up to. By having the definitive, he's right and anything he's done is justified so things should end well for him ending, all the character conflict -essentially the film- has been rendered pointless. Every time that made him second guess if he was really doing the right things, or if he should have this kind of powers, none of that mattered because he got everything he wanted.
Now if this was the original ending or not I don't know, we've seen scripts like this changed last minute because of the focus group audience before.
And because of it the film completely lost what the book went out to say, and that kind of defeats the point of making it into a film. Why don't they just have fans of the original work in this focus group, or try to throw in a few film critics or something. Get some opinions that actually know what they're talking about and will actually have an effect on how the film is rated, and thereby seen by the public.
CONCLUSION
It's a decent film, if you turn it off before the ending it's a good film. But other then being thoroughly upset by the ending there wasn't much reason to think about the film after seeing it. If you're bored or interested in seeing how archetypes go wrong you could watch it, but if you're going to watch it on Netflix there are simply better films to occupy your time and attention with.
Goodnight everyone :)
Surviving his debt with the mob and addiction there's a flash forward and Eddie goes onto become a politician and running for Senator, obviously still under the enhancing influence of NZT as of this point the conclusion is still acceptable. We've seen none of the characters from his former life and it's plausible to say that as up and running politician Eddie has accepted a life of ostracization from common living and sacrificed the normal life for his future of "limitless success" while behind the scenes doing everything he can to sustain and keep his drug dependency secret. And it looks like that's how it's going to end up... right up till the point when we see him going to dinner with his love interest. She looks at him after he speaks to the waitress in Mandarin and he innocently asks, "What?" with a smile on his face before the credits roll. Now if you're seeing the issue, a paragraph or so ago we established the part where his love interest says she can't stay with him while he's on the drug because while under its effect he is fundamentally a different person. The man she loved was not capable of the level of manipulation or the kind of acts the protagonist has had to do to keep his super human ability.
If the final scene had been, say, Eddie having a dinner with no one in-particular or not at all then coming back to sleep in an empty apartment/hotel room, it would have had carried the powerful ending tone the entire film built up to. By having the definitive, he's right and anything he's done is justified so things should end well for him ending, all the character conflict -essentially the film- has been rendered pointless. Every time that made him second guess if he was really doing the right things, or if he should have this kind of powers, none of that mattered because he got everything he wanted.
Now if this was the original ending or not I don't know, we've seen scripts like this changed last minute because of the focus group audience before.
And because of it the film completely lost what the book went out to say, and that kind of defeats the point of making it into a film. Why don't they just have fans of the original work in this focus group, or try to throw in a few film critics or something. Get some opinions that actually know what they're talking about and will actually have an effect on how the film is rated, and thereby seen by the public.
CONCLUSION
It's a decent film, if you turn it off before the ending it's a good film. But other then being thoroughly upset by the ending there wasn't much reason to think about the film after seeing it. If you're bored or interested in seeing how archetypes go wrong you could watch it, but if you're going to watch it on Netflix there are simply better films to occupy your time and attention with.
Goodnight everyone :)
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