Duncan Jones Can Rebound From ‘Mute’ By Finding Another ‘Source Code’

Movie lovers, particularly genre buffs, pegged a lot of hope on Duncan Jones to rise up the ranks of Hollywood and become a new Spielberg or Nolan. After bursting out of the gate with Moon and Source Code, he arrived at the classic “one for them, one for me” juncture. Warcraft, his adaptation of the popular video-game, did the business it needed to in China but landed with a thud for audiences and critics in America. Mute, his personal project for Netflix bizarrely blending the sensibilities of Blade Runner and M*A*S*H, drew widespread pans from the critical class. (Tellingly, the streaming giant did not bail Jones out with reports that millions upon millions of subscribers watched Mute anyways.)

Clearly Jones needs some kind of career recalibration – financing for his ambitious visions will inevitably dry up on his current trajectory. The conventional wisdom suggests he should attempt a reversion to the film most people consider his calling card, Moon. The film’s pared-back simplicity could serve as a welcome antidote to Jones’ busy, messy recent work. Not to mention, Moon cost a modest $5 million, a sum far more likely to win over a tentative financier.

But to regain his footing and a little bit of mojo, Jones should really be looking to develop something more like his sophomore feature, Source Code. This high-concept sci-fi thriller is Jones’ only movie where he doesn’t have some kind of writing credit; star Jake Gyllenhaal brought him the script. “There were all sorts of challenges and puzzles and I kind of like solving puzzles,” Jones said upon the film’s release in 2011, “so it was kind of fun for me to work out how to achieve all these difficult things that were set up in the script by Ben Ripley.”

It’s an element of discovery and excavation that makes Source Code such a riveting watch. Rather than building out a world, Jones digs in. The format of Ripley’s script lends itself to such scavenging, as Gyllenhaal’s Colter Stevens must continually repeat the final 8 minutes inside a simulation of a train before it explodes. Stevens has a mission dictated by the military – figure out who planted the bomb before they can carry out another attack in the real world – that keeps the propulsive plot chugging forward.

A lesser director might let the pattern of the script devolve into monotony. Jones, however, finds real texture in the repetition and confines of Source Code. Each time Stevens gets sent back to the train in the rebooted timeline, his horizons get a little broader as the overwhelming amount of information he’s asked to process becomes more familiar. The sensory shocks of a soda can crackling open or a coffee spill dribbling on Stevens’ shoe eventually wear off, allowing him greater flexibility to home in on the behavior and motivations of the would-be bombers around him.

Jones places the viewer in the mindset of his protagonist, allowing the slow trickle of information to gradually inform an understanding of the field of play. There’s no need for the heavy-handed exposition that even masters like Nolan have come to rely on in order to communicate the rules of a new world. Source Code doesn’t even feed the audience the questions that they should ask! Instead, they arise organically from the story and the mysteries Jones creates through shot selection and montage.

This extends beyond the centerpiece train sequences, too. In between his missions, Stevens is trapped inside some nebulous tight space that no one bothers to explain. At first, Jones shoots these quarters in claustrophobic close-ups, doling out precious little information and increasing the mystery of where Stevens’ body is housed. But as Source Code chugs along, the view inside the space incrementally grows, reflecting Stevens’ increasing comfort level and sense of agency. With every question answered, the expanding cockpit suggests another.

Ripley’s script lays down some fairly complex dynamics in Source Code, and it’s to Jones’ credit that he never lets the cleverness of the concept overwhelm the film. Far too many stories involving time travel and multiple timelines seek to wow viewers with their elaborate machinations, adding layer upon layer that requires decoding. How events are happening becomes more important than the events themselves. Where Ripley provides a ticking clock, Jones supplies a beating heart. The nuts and bolts never take precedence over the character who must make them churn to his advantage.

Source Code slowly inches towards a resolution that’s more Groundhog Day than The Terminator, letting the ethical dimension of the story guide its compass towards a more humane conclusion than initially hinted. It’s to Jones’ credit that this tricky gear shift, a third act adjustment that could easily have gone off the rails, is virtually imperceptible. Gyllenhaal deserves recognition for nailing the soul of a character who comes to appreciate the passengers around him as more than just suspects and victims, though his realization would be for naught had Jones not laid the groundwork for the change by including emotional beats throughout.

So seriously, someone out there must have an unmade script that would fit nicely into that (rapidly disappearing) mid-range budget to which Duncan Jones can attach himself. Or, heck, let him lend his sensibilities to the seventh Mission: Impossible movie! Don’t write this talented director off – in fact, write something for him. If Source Code is any indication, Jones is at his best when collaborating with a gifted writer to translate their vision into pure cinema.

Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, Little White Lies and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.

Where to stream Source Code