Nemesis Game (2003) is a film about riddles. And also, I think it's about philosophy, or metaphysics, or the meaning of life, or something. That is, it tries to use riddles as a metaphor for humanity's persistent questions regarding the "meaning of life" (whatever that means), and then literalizes the metaphor. In other words, it equates the search for answers to riddles and the search for life's various questions. If that sounds like an intriguing premise, that's because it should be. But the film, directed and written by Jesse Warn, doesn't have something interesting to say about such a connection; rather, it incessantly pats itself on the back, as if the entire point of the film is to say, "Hey, isn't this a cool metaphor?"
It certainly seems to try to make something of the metaphor. "It's all a game. Life, everything, one big game," insists Sara Novak, the protagonist. The plot is driven by her playing a certain game – one in which she solves riddles anonymously left to her via grafitti on Toronto subway walls. The rules of this game require her to spray the answers to these riddles in a room in an abandoned building of some kind. Once she has solved enough of these riddles, she is supposed to perceive a "Design". What this Design is is unclear – at some points it seems to be the meaning of life, at others it seems to be a knowledge of one's destiny. I suppose it's both, although it's never quite explained.
In any case, Nemesis Game certainly spends a lot of time discussing riddles and this Design – in fact, almost all of its time. Considering it's a barely coherent theme, that's impressive. Even worse, it comes at the expense of some essential elements. Half of the dialogue is stilted and overly expositional (though I will say the actors mostly did a good job delivering them). In the first scene, a detective confronts a criminal and explains her life story and her crimes. A few scenes later, when the detective speaks to Sara, who is his daughter, he does the same thing, explaining how her mother died and how he feels about Sara's reaction to her mother's death. In both scenes, each character knows these things; the only reason he has to say them is for the benefit of the audience. Doing so only thwarts the very earnest tone of the scenes.
More importantly, the characters themselves are hardly any more believable. The film introduces us to Sara as a riddle solver, and for most of the film we essentially see her do just and only that: solve riddles. But before a certain plot twist halfway through the film, there are no stakes involved. She's only solving these mysterious anonymous riddles because they're mysterious and anonymous – and apparently she likes solving riddles. There is almost no other relevant information about Sara. The film's premise and the riddles themselves might be able to sustain interest for the first half of the film, but compelling drama it does not make.
The weak characterization extends, of course, to the secondary characters. Essentially, they're all reduced to stereotypes, tropes, or plot devices. For instance, two of Sara's peers at college are creepy to the point where they don't even seem like real people anymore. Their function is to act creepy, so they are. Just as there is no indication that Sara has a life beyond the scenes she appears in, there is even less indication (if that's even possible) that they have one either.
Still, Nemesis Game has some redeeming qualities. It has a strong premise. It's plotted well, and many of the riddles and plot devices are cleverly constructed. The underlying issue with the script, however, is that it seems to believe that cleverness alone can sustain interest in a film. But if the plot is merely clever – and not an inevitable result of the actions of well-rounded characters – then it cannot do so. The script is salvageable – I just think it needed a few more drafts, and it could have been an excellent film. Sadly, it never got those revisions, and what we're left with is dissatisfying.
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