ADSactly Movies - Lessons from Movies #2: In Time (2011)

In Time

This movie is many things, and boring is not one of them because the action will continuously keep you hooked, new conflicts being created at all times and its philosophical meaning will always give you something to think about.

If people only look at the surface, they will probably consider it a love story where the good guy tries to save the world, fighting the villains and meeting a girl that is going to help him thrive in the end. But as you get closer and look past the exterior, deep down at the heart of this movie you will be able to see the relationships between that world and ours and you may get a better understanding of how things work.

Disclaimer: I have to note that these are my opinions, what I took from the movie, but I advise you to watch it yourself, maybe you will feel differently or pick up on something I missed.

Jobs

I see this movie as the perfect metaphor for our world because in the film, people have to work for their time, which is also currency and if they run out of it, they are dead. You only have to watch with the right set of eyes because, in a real job, we are giving away our time (eight hours every day) for money, for a currency that we can later buy things with.

Time is now the currency. We earn it and spend it.

Even if people run out of money, in our society, they are not necessarily dead, like in the movie, because there are programs that can help people in need giving them food and maybe a place where they can temporarily stay. But in the long term, having no money may reflect a particular type of death, the death of your dreams and wishes.

Immortality

The whole movie is built around the principle of immortality, a fantasy that may seem like a blessing for some and a curse for others. In the film, you live for as much time as you have on your clock, and if someone can acquire great fortunes, they can live forever.

This is somehow similar to what’s happening in our world because the wealthy few have more money than they can ever spend, so they have financial immortality because they will never run out of money in their lifetime.

For a few to be immortal, many must die.

To put this into our world’s parameters, for a few to be rich, many must be poor. Everybody cannot be rich because then we would all have the same amount of money thus the definition of richness would not be valid anymore. There is enough money so everyone can have a decent life but that, as in the movie, is not possible because it would put the world out of order creating a new one, which doesn’t seem like such a bad thing after all but the rich will never let it happen.

The cost of living keeps rising to make sure people keep dying.

In a world where everyone has the possibility of being immortal, such a thing seems impossible because, in the movie, the poor are mistreated working for pennies while the cost of living keeps on rising so they can’t break their limitations.

Death

Even if the idea of living forever may sound appealing for some, it is never a good idea because we as humans are beings that probably have both a body and a soul, and at some point, we all have to meet “our creator”.

This thing is well stated in Sylvia’s quote “The clock is good for no one. The poor die and the rich don’t live. We can all live forever as long as we don’t do anything foolish”. She dropped a real gem here. Most people can live for a long time as long as they have a safe and decent life which is not bad if that’s your thing. But you see, tasting all life’s wonders comes with a price and most of the times it may just mean that you can’t have a life of security anymore and that you have to get out of your comfort zone.

Lessons Learned

By now, you were probably able to see the similarities between the world described in the movie and the world we live in, influential people abusing the weak so they can have an abundant life.

The most significant lesson I learned from this movie is that, as Will Salas was the hero of his world, spreading the wealth and helping the poor, you can be the hero of your inner world, helping yourself to get in a position from where you can help others.

No general structure can help everybody because every community has its needs, but if we all make a small step every day towards better times, maybe we have the chance to change our society too.

Make sure to mention in the comments what movie would you to see featured in this series because I am checking them.

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