"In Time": The Ten Minutes of Gay Teases Will Cost You Two Hours

 

In Time (2011) evokes a far-future world (with 1990s technology) where aging stops at age 25.  Then you die, unless you can acquire more time.  Jobs pay you in time (e.g., two days for eight hours), and commodities cost units of time (ten minutes for a couple of coffee, an hour for a bus ride).  

You pay or give away time by clasping the person's forearm; there are no security codes of any sort, so any thug can grab you and steal time from your account, or even take it all and kill you. To make matters worse, the amount of time in your account is flashing on your forearm for anyone to see,   How would you like your total net worth visible to everyone, and available for anyone to take?  

There are several time zones based on income level; it costs a year to even enter New Greenwich, the realm of the super-rich, with their mansions and limousines and caviar dinner parties.  But Will (Justin Timberlake) lives in the Dayton Zone, a ghetto where people work long hours just to earn enough time to live another day (yes, I get the metaphor), and there are roving bands of thieves waiting to steal it from them.

Early on, Will's Mom (who of course is his age) tries to set him up with
a girl, but he protests "I don't have time for a girlfriend."  Yeah, I've heard that one before.  Could Will be gay?

After work in the dismal Metropolis factory, Will goes out with his...um buddy or boyfriend Borel  (a rather chunky Johny Galecki from The Big Bang Theory).  At a bar, they encounter the ultra-rich Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer, left), who is flashing time around and ignoring the fawning attention of girls who want to have sex with him in exchange for some hours.  So, he's gay, too?

Flashing big wads of time in the ghetto?  The guy will get killed!  Sure enoough, gang leader Fortis (Alex Pettyfer) and his goons burst in.  Will rushes to the rescue, grabs Hamilton by the arm (by the arm? how romantic!), and takes him to a deserted loft, where they can hide out until morning. Wait -- a boy rescuing a boy instead of a girl?  Unexpected, and hot!  This is going to be a gay romance, with Will and Hamilton taking down the evil empire!

They spend the night together. -- on separate couches, unfortunately.  Hamilton explains that he's 105 years old, and tired of living forever; he was trying to commit suicide by theft (why not give all your time to a charity?).  Also, the system is rigged.  Everybody can't live forever, or there'd be no room for them all.  So the bourgeosie increase the cost of living faster than worker wages; the rich get richer and the poor die.  Workers of the world, unite!  You have nothing to lose but your chains.

In the morning, while Will is still asleep, Hamilton gifts him with a hundred years, then uses his remaining minutes to hide, so Will won't be able to give the years back, and he can die.  Boo!  I thought these guys were going to work together, a gay couple, or at least a gay subtext buddy-bond couple.

Will gambles his newfound century into milennia, then settles down in New Greenwich to take down the evil empire by himself.  Well, not exactly.  As he struts by, The Girl, who looks like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction,  stares at him in open-jawed shock, as if she never thought about sex before but now can't wait to tear off Will's clothes.  The Most Beautiful Man in the World!  Finally she's found the meaning of life -- to stare into His eyes -- or at His crotch -- forever.   Apparently she's a fan of NSYNC, Justin Timberlake's old boy band.

At least they turn the Girl of His Dreams cliche over, letting the girl instead of the boy dissolve into the a pool of hormones.  Unfortunately, once actress Amanda Seyfried mastered the "sex epiphany" look, she decided to use it every time she sees Will, regardless of the situation.

And why does her rather heavy makeup never fade, even after days on the lam, first as hostage and then as girlfriend?

As you can probably guess, after the first ten minutes of gay teases, the movie devolved into a horribly cliched, heterosexist "boy and girl work togethe to take down the evil corporation" plot, and I lost interest.

Even Johnny Galecki the BFF acts like Will's boyfriend for 10 minutes, then turns around and has a wife and kid at home.  Ha-ha, made you think that gay people exist!