Mr Nobody review

 Number 396 on the top 1000 films of all time is the science-fiction film 'Mr Nobody.'

Nemo Nobody (Jared Leto) is a 118-year old man at the end of his life. He is living in a futuristic society where humanity has achieved practical immortality. A journalist (Daniel Mays) interviews Nemo about his life. Nemo gives a sprawling, contradictory story which explores the many different paths that his life could have taken. He focusses on key events that happened when he was nine, fifteen and thirty-four. Some of the events include the break-up of his parents marriage as well as his own relationships with a number of women.

If there is anything that this film taught me it's that I'm not the biggest fan of science-fiction. I'm not maligning a whole genre - there is some sci-fi I like, but a lot of science-fiction seems pretentious and self-indulgent; writers and directors trying to show off their intellectual ability. And, of course, you can argue that I'm being bitter because I'm not clever enough to understand it. Partly that is true, but, for me, cinema should be a form of escape. It should be something where I can turn my brain off and not worry about missing half the film. Sure, that doesn't mean it can't be arty or intellectual, but I want to easily enjoy and understand a film.

Anyway, I'm saying all that, because I think 'Mr Nobody' was pretentious, self-indulgent and overly-long. The concept of it was interesting enough. A multi-verse idea lends itself to lots of narrative potential - every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And every decision you do or don't take can create a whole new universe. And this could have been interesting to watch if the film didn't explore every single way Mr Nobody's life could have gone. We see what life would have been like if he had chosen to live with his mum and with his dad. We see what his life would have been like if he had dated and married Anna (Diane Kruger) or if he had married Elise (Sarah Polley) or Jean (Linh Dan Pham.) All of these different storylines bloated the film and made it far longer than it needed to be.

And because so much of the film is told in flashback, with Thomas Byrne playing a nine-year-old Nemo and Toby Regbo playing Nemo at fifteen, it didn't really give Jared Leto a chance to act. He isn't the film all that much which is weird considering he plays the main character. He's a great actor - he won an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club so why you won't allow him to do his thing is just a mystery to me. And when we do see him, he is mostly in make-up or against a horrifically, fake-looking green-screen. Seriously? The CGI was awful. Or perhaps that was supposed to be the point. Mr Nobody gives so many contradictory accounts that we're not sure which account to believe. Maybe the flashbacks with the awful CGI are supposed to be the imposters.

Although, one good thing about the film was its soundtrack. It was diverse and varied consisting of artists like Otis Redding, the Police and Buddy Holly. But this great soundtrack didn't make up for what was ultimately a convoluted, overly-confusing and self-indulgent film. And a film that severely under-utilised its lead actor.