Time Through the Eyes of Faith

The recently released movie, In Time, has not received many favorable reviews from film critics.

From what I read in those reviews, I wanted to watch the movie through the eyes of faith. Questions of making the best use of our time while we are alive, of how to live a full and meaningful life and what happens when we die are questions of faith. I went to the movie theater hoping to be challenged to consider and reconsider those faith and religious issues in meaningful ways.

I was not disappointed.

In Time is a science fiction movie with no precise time setting. It seems to be earth in the future. A lot is not explained. It’s science fiction, and I am willing to enter into the writer’s story and engage with it.

Time is the literal currency. Each person has a digital clock that glows in the forearm. A worker gets paid in time. Morning coffee costs four minutes. A bus ride across town is a two-hour fare. Humans have been genetically altered to stop aging at age 25. At age 25, one more year is automatically added, and then each person’s life is on the clock until time’s up, unless you earn more time, win more time, inherit more time, borrow more time or steal more time.  

Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives in the poor time zone called the ghetto in the movie. Through a chance run-in at a bar, Will meets and rescues Harry Hamilton (Matt Bomer) from being “clocked out”—killed for his time—by a gang of thieves. While hiding from the gang, Will and Henry have a discussion about the value and meaning of time. Harry is 105 years old and his arm clock reads 104 years. Will has never seen a “Century Man” before.

Henry asks Will what would he do if he had all this time. Will replied, “I’d stop watching it. And if I had all that time, I sure as #%&* wouldn’t waste it.”

Before dawn, Henry transfers all but five minutes of time to Will, walks to the bridge over the river, sits and waits for his time to run out. Will wakes, runs to try and save Harry, but is too late. Caught on surveillance tape, Will is now hunted by the ”timekeepers”—the police—who think Will stole Harry’s time.

The timekeepers had not heard Will and Henry’s discussion about life and death. Henry had lived more than a century and had more than a century of time on his arm to, well, spend. He said to Will that the day comes when you have enough.

“We want and need to die,” was Henry’s parting message to Will, spelled out in the dust and grime on a window is, “Don’t waste my time.”

The beautiful girl, the chase scenes, the impossible escapes and flashy gun fights hadn’t yet appeared on screen and already I’d  been transported into a world where issues of life and death, immortality and the morality of wasting time are daily concerns.

There was nothing in the movie about life after death. Dying, when the time ran out, was like an on switch simply turned off. Alive. Click. Dead. All zeroes on your clock. Time’s up. Standing or sitting or running then a grunt and dead. I found it unnerving.

Hope was missing. It was missing from life and from death. If you were wealthy and had centuries of “time to spare,” then all your tomorrows were certain and there was no need for hope. If you were poor and “running out of time” to live and the charity “time lines” were empty, then was no way for you to earn time, borrow time, steal time—there was no hint of hope. Wait for the time to run out and you just stop and drop.

In Time shows a world with no hope or faith, but a place where the human biological clock gained control and became the god. This is not a god of mercy and miracles.

I proclaim God and a faith of hope. A familiar verse from the Letter to the Hebrews states, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1

Hope and faith motivate my living in this world and will see me through my dying into life in the spirit. 

The time I spent to watch In Time was not a waste of time. It generated many faith questions, including what is the meaning of life and death in a society with the absence of any faith system?  

It is a film that made me think. I like that.

This movie is rated PG-13 for some violence, sexuality, partial nudity and brief strong language.