Intelligent and original sci-fi

Michael Winterbottom's smart and intriguing foray into the sci-fi genre stars Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton as the investigator and criminal having a forbidden love affair. Mostly shot in Shanghai and India, the film offers a weirdly convincing portrait of a future world where everyone is controlled by technology and forbidden to travel without the required clearance. People live in multi-cultural societies and speak in sentences that are a mixture of different languages with odd hybrid accents.

'Code 46' is beautifully shot and scored and the performances from Robbins and Morton are compelling. Frank Cottrell Boyce's screenplay is full of ideas, some of these ideas work while others don't, but it's gratifying to watch a film so determined and singular in it's vision.

There are many things wrong with 'Code 46', and a number of elements in the screenplay don't really add up, but it's still a beautiful, haunting and thought-provoking drama which undoubtedly confirms Winterbottom as the most exciting British filmmaker around.