* * * Warm Bodies. Written and directed by Jonathan Levine, based on a
novel by Isaac Marion.
 |
| Corpse (Nicholas Hoult) meets girl (Teresa Palmer) in Warm Bodies. |
Before the craze for the undead at the multiplex, you
were most likely to hear about zombies in the context of philosophical
thought-experiments on the nature of consciousness. That is, how do you know
that other people have minds like you, if all you really know is their outward
behavior? If a zombie goes through all the motions of being a person with a
full inner life, but really has no mind at all, could you tell the difference?
More disturbingly, what if your brain were set up to make you believe you are
conscious, when you’re really just a zombie yourself?
Not that Jonathan Levine (50/50, The Wackness) necessarily had any of that in mind when he made his
zombie romance, Warm Bodies.
Outwardly, this is just a twist on what has become a too-familiar genre. After
the usual zombie apocalypse, we meet a dead-ender with a difference: known only
as “R”—from a fragment of his forgotten name—the hero (Nicholas Hoult) is an
ambulatory corpse with a full set of existential hang-ups. Bemoaning the monotony of being dead, R shambles around a wrecked airport, wondering if
there’s anything more to post-mortem life. Mere teenage self-consciousness isn’t
enough for this zombie to suspect he is, in fact, alive. He hungers for brains,
yet he hungers for something more.
“More” finally comes in the person
of Julie (Teresa Palmer), a living, breathing female vaguely resembling Kristin
Stewart, but with the spunk to wake the dead. Smitten at first sight, R doesn’t
devour her but saves her life. She, in turn, becomes intrigued by her unusual
savior, who lacks a pulse but seems more humane than her “shoot ‘em on sight”
vigilante father (John Malkovich). Love, you see, has the effect of reversing
the zombie plague—an effect that starts with R and spreads through other
corpses that are still on the fresher side. “Don’t be creepy…” the zombie tells
himself as he tries not to stare at her.
True, in the abstract this sounds
like B.S., and even worse, high-concept B.S.. But Levine’s script, based on
Isaac Marion’s novel, is witty enough to distract from the wackness of its
“love conquers death” theme. Instead of Night
of the Living Dead, the classic he seems to have in mind is Shakespeare’s
tale of star-cross’d lovers, compelled by their passion to defy their warring
clans. (If Julie = Juliet, then R
obviously doesn’t stand for “Randy”). Levine even gives the couple a balcony
scene.
In short, the film is mildly hokey
but also mildly clever. Indeed, the latent humanity of Levine’s walking dead
raises bigger questions than a mere rom-com has any business asking. Instead of
the usual raging virus, it’s the lack of real interaction that makes zombies of
us all; in a flashback, Levine shows us the world shortly before its collapse,
as the living ignore each other in favor
of smart-phones and tablets. The zombie next to you may not want your brains as
much as he wants to squeeze in his next move on Words With Friends.
Today’s zombie is just the horror
equivalent of all the robots and replicants and cyborgs of science fiction,
challenging us to define what it really means to be human. In most instances,
the deep issues are never explored, because the humans always respond first by
blowing zombies’ brains out. Sometimes the shooters even seem to enjoy it—a
pleasure that, in a more reflective treatment, might prompt the question of who
is really dead inside.
For exhuming these and other hidden themes, Warm Bodies isn’t wacked.
© 2013 Nicholas
Nicastro
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