Butler's Cinema Scene

“EQUALS” My rating: B-

101 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

The dystopian future depicted in Drake Doremus’ “Equals” is on one level pretty attractive.

The people are mostly young, well fed and moderately good looking. Everyone wears white clothing and works and lives in uber-modern buildings of glass, plastic and concrete. There appears to be no crime.

Also, no joy. This civilization — formed after a war that left most of the Earth a smoking ruin — views emotion as a sickness or perhaps a crime. Citizens are bombarded with public service announcements alerting them to the symptoms of SOS — “switched-on syndrome” — in which they will begin to be overcome by emotions.

It’s like a being told you have AIDS…as the disease progresses the sufferers will become ever more unstable. Eventually they will be institutionalized and destroyed. Many choose suicide.

Early in “Equals” Silas (Nicholas Hoult) is diagnosed with an early stage of the disease. His coworkers are understanding but cautious…he won’t be required to wear a face mask, but his work station will be set apart from theirs.

He senses that a co-worker, Nia (Kristen Stewart), may also have SOS. Slowly they are drawn to commit the ultimate sin: A love affair.

Kristen Stewart, Nicholas Hoult

Nathan Parker’s screenplay references a wide variety of sources: Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World,  George Lucas’ early film “THX 1138.”  There’s even a final twist out of “Romeo and Juliet.”

Though they get supporting help from pros like Guy Pierce and Jackie Weaver, the film pretty much belongs to Hoult and Stewart, who excel at revealing the flash of desperate emotion breaking through their placid exteriors.

The production design is appropriately sterile and polished. It’s only when the characters step outside into a world of bird calls and greenery that  the suffocating blanket of sameness lifts.

“Equals” is a slow, quiet film — probably way too slow for today’s attention-deficit audiences. But in its quiet it finds a voice.

But here’s the thing: the film is a sci-fi allegory and like all allegories it plays better in theory than in practice. We’re left asking big questions. Such as, where did all these people come from if sex and love have been outlawed? How do you raise children to suppress their every emotion?

The world Doremus and his players have created starts to fall apart as soon as you start examining it.

Still, “Equals” succeeds as a modestly effective yarn about the power of love.

| Robert W. Butler