Here's Why

When I was invited to a preview screening of "Cypher", I had very low expectations from the press release I was sent, but I left the cinema exhilarated- this is one of the best science fiction movies I have seen for a very long time. Lucy Liu can really act! And she does all her own stunts. Morgan Sullivan is a solid, stable, reliable and *boring* man who is mad as hell at his standardized life and not going to take it anymore. He decides to give himself, body and soul to a multinational corporation in exchange for the opportunity to reinvent himself, and live the exciting double-life of  a spy.  From the moment he applies for the job, his life is no longer under his control, and nothing and nobody is what they seem. Only the cryptic Rita seems to really be sure what is going on, but does she really want to help him - or is she using him like everybody else? Getting to the preview of Cypher was a little spy-like experience in itself. I arrived at the address for the preview a little early, looking for level six as instructed. I was disturbed to find that the directory only listed five floors. I came back closer to the screening time, and a man  leaning around casually in a business suit checked me out, and checked I was  there for the preview. He called me a lift and with a special key activated the button to access the sixth floor, where I followed the signs into a tiny, and ...empty  theaterette. Well, I was the first to arrive. Eventually I was greeted and told that the screening was for journalists and "people like you".

"Are you willing to lie to your wife?"

The movie opens with Morgan's job interview and lie-detecting brain scan. Jeremy Northam is brilliant with all the little nuances of the body language of an awkward shy drone who is just waiting to become the man he always wanted to be. The glee with which he agrees to lie to his wife shows how unhappy he is, and the forces that drove him to this place and this opportunity.

"We can give you a whole new identity."

Morgan is given a new name, told he can make up any personality he likes to go with it, any personal history and preferences - he's reborn; free at last. He's sent off to his junior spy assignment at a trade convention, complete with appropriately ordinary-looking spy gadgets. Its the near future, but we only get glimpses of the world outside the Corporations and the Conventions. There are funny-looking computer disks,  cybernetic eyes, sinister brain machines and designer helicopters, but only where they fit into the story. The world he's entered is mostly mundane, until Rita, played by Lucy Liu, peels back the edge of the ordinary world to show Morgan the nightmare hiding underneath. Every new scene is filmed at a new location in Toronto, and the identity of the players and the nature of the game keeps changing.  Sullivan's convention hotel was shot at the Regal Constellation, where I've attended several TorontoTrek science fiction conventions. The airport scene was shot at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre where the 2003 World Science Fiction Convention will be held.

Don't worry, WE can give you a whole new identity.