‘Predestination’, is an Australian science fiction movie, released in the year 2014. It is one of the best time travel movies ever made and is a mind-boggling finisher. The movie was directed by a duo of German-Australian film directors Michael and Peter Spierig, who also happen to be well-known producers and screenwriters. The movie features Sarah Snook playing Jane/John, Ethan Hawke as Agent Doe and Noah Taylor as Mr. Robertson, which are the main characters in the movie besides many more.
Introduction to the movie
In the opening scene of the movie, a mysterious-looking man, wearing a hat with an overcoat, is walking in a corridor of a huge building. A voice is heard saying in the background, what if I put him in front of you, the man who ruined your life? Would you kill him, if I guarantee you that you will get away with it?
The man reaches the stairs of the building, and after reaching the basement, he tries to defuse a bomb that is already planted there. Just then, someone passes by and a gunshot is heard. There is an exchange of fire between the two, and in the confusion, while again reaching out to defuse the bomb, the bomb goes off.
While the person is badly burned on the face, he tries to reach toward his violin-case-looking instrument. He is helped in this, by another man whose face is not shown. While his face is burnt and being in pain, he manages to grab the violin box and suddenly disappears.
The agent gets a new face
In another scene, the same man is shown on a bed, with his face covered with bandages, and a doctor examining him. The man has actually traveled to 1992, where he is being treated in the hospital. As this man’s face was badly burnt in the accident, he is being given a new face by the doctor. This man is actually an agent of some mysterious agency, known as the Temporal bureau. Two agents from the same bureau visit him, felicitate him and offer him his last assignment.
This agent who gets a new face after plastic surgery is after a serial bomber, known as the Fizzle Bomber, who killed 10,000 people in New York in 1975. The agent has been granted the ability to travel through time by the agency, and while he has been making attempts to stop the incident, but has been unsuccessful so far. The agents from the Temporal Bureau, have the ability to travel through time and move back and forth.
The entry of another guy
The agent after the recovery travels back to 1970 and plays the character of a barkeep, who is working in a bar. It looks as if he is waiting for someone while having a glance at his watch. A handsome guy enters the bar and asks for a drink from the barkeep. The barkeep and the guy have a light conversation regarding the fear of the Fizzle bomber, and during the conversation, the guy asks the barkeep to tell some joke.
The barkeep makes two statements jokingly, which are, that a guy walks into a bar and the second one as what comes first? The chicken or the egg? Both these statements have a deep meaning in the movie which shall be revealed later.
On the television kept in the bar, there appears an interview where the hostess asks the city mayor about the security arrangements, in view of an eminent fifth attack and discusses the threat posed by the Fizzle Bomber in New York City. The guy in the bar feels the name given to the bomber is somewhat strange, and that he hates this name since it looks as if the bomb is going to fizzle, whereas the bomber man makes them, using RDX which is quite a complex phenomenon. The guy also adds, maybe, the serial bomber is doing the city a favor, and if some people die, they may deserve to go.
The Guy reveals his story to the Barkeep
During discussions, the handsome guy tells the barkeep, that he is an author and writes the confession stories under the name “The unmarried mother”, and that he can understand women more than anyone can. When the barkeeper gets surprised and asks how is it possible, the guy starts to tell his story to the barkeeper, where the movie takes an unexpected turn.
The guy tells the barkeeper that he was born as a girl. As a newborn baby, she was abandoned, and kept by someone at the gate of the Cleveland Orphanage on Sept 13th 1945. When the caretaker of the Orphanage was informed on the phone, she brought her in and named her Jane. Jane was ultimately raised in the orphanage, with other orphaned children. Jane was very strong and intelligent in her childhood, stronger than any other girl or boy in the orphanage. She never grew sick and was very healthy throughout her life. All the other children envied her, and so she grew up being almost secluded. She realized that she had little chance of getting married since she was probably not adopted by anybody for the same reason.
The guy tells the barkeeper, that he doesn’t have pictures of his childhood and can’t remember how he looked as a child. To this, the barkeeper tells him, that he looked better than the barkeep. This statement also has significance in the movie, which will be revealed later on.
The man continues his story that as a girl, he tried to join a space Corps Program that was looking for young talent, which was headed by one person named Mr. Robertson.
She started to give all the tests required to get enrolled in the program. Jane excelled in all the tests, be it mathematics, physics or physical tests, which was a mandatory requirement for a program like that one.
The twist in the life of the guy
One day she had to fight with the other girl in the academy, as a part of this program. Jane hit the other girl quite hard, after a tough fight. At the same time, the authorities discovered through some medical tests, that there is something odd in her physiology, but they didn’t tell her about this, and disqualified her without offering any valid reason, although it looked, as if her punching the other girl hard, was the reason.
Jane started to work in a family as a mother’s helper to sustain herself, and that is where she discovered the confession magazines, which she started to read. She worked during the daytime and went to school at night.
Another turn in the story takes place, when Jane meets a man, after her classes. Jane shared with this guy some good moments and a kind of bonding, as he was very courteous and respectful towards her, unlike her earlier experiences.
They started to meet regularly but suddenly, one day he left, telling her he would be coming soon. But he never came back, and all the happiness that she got was short-lived.
Another twist in the story of the guy
As a surprise, Mr. Robertson came to her, to recruit her into the space program which was pleasantly, a surprise second chance for her. However, in due course of time, she realized that she was pregnant. Although she delivered the baby, but the doctor concerned with her delivery, told her that she had something odd in her body.
The doctor told Jane, that her body has both the male and female internal organs of which, the female organ was more developed. The doctor also tells her, that after delivering the female baby from her, the team had to remove the female organ, due to excessive bleeding during the delivery. As per the doctor, after reconstruction, the male organ was fully functional, and after some more surgeries, she will have to readjust and live like a male from then onwards.
The story of how he changes his gender
The guy tells the barkeeper, that he as a female, had three major operations and had to take testosterone to look like a male. The guy also tells the barkeep that while still a woman, she named her baby Jane, as she knew that she will have to change her name in the future. But, after two weeks only, while her baby was in the hospital, the baby was stolen from there by some unknown man, as per the nurse.
The guy continues his story, and tells the barkeep that he changed his name, bought a typewriter and started to work as a public stenographer to support himself. He also studied some confession magazines and started to write confession stories. The guy informs the barkeeper that this is the reason, that he is able to write from a woman’s point of view. After that, the guy gets very sad and angry, about what that man did to him while he was still a girl. The guy says that person has ruined his life and therefore, deserves to die.
The Barkeep makes surprise offer to the guy
The barkeep then tells the guy, that he can put that man in front of him who ruined his life, and also guarantees that the guy will be able to get away with it, even after killing that man. When the guy doesn’t believe the barkeep, the barkeep surprises the writer by uttering the name of the orphanage, in which the man’s childhood was spent, as well as tells that the guy’s name is John, which till now, the guy had not revealed to the barkeep.
Now, the barkeep tells him that he can join him in his mission and that he actually works for Mr. Robertson, who wanted to give John a chance in his space program earlier. The barkeep reminds the guy, that he has the skills, but he never got any opportunity to use them, and he can provide that opportunity.
The time travel starts
Then he takes the guy to the basement and with the help of his time machine, both of them travel to April 3rd, 1963. It is the same year when Jane attended the night classes and met that stranger. Before taking the guy to confront that man, the barkeep tells John that he is one of the eleven Temporal agents, whose job is to prevent crime before it actually happens. To John’s curiosity, the barkeep tells him that they can travel 53 years back and forth, from the year of the invention of the time machine, which is 1981.
On asked why the barkeep is doing this, the barkeep replies to john, that he suspects that this very man is the fizzle bomber, and by killing him they shall prevent him from doing more damage in the future. It is revealed here, that Mr. Robertson is also working for the Temporal bureau, and if John proves his worth, he can get fully commissioned into the bureau.
The guy meets Jane
The barkeep gives the gun to John, to shoot the Man who ruined his life when he was Jane. Barkeep leaves for somewhere else and John walks to the night school, where Jane had met that man for the first time. The guy meets Jane who is coming out of her classes and bumps into her.
After a brief discussion with Jane, where incidentally the exact repetition of events and the exchange of words takes place, as had happened earlier. John realizes that he only is that stranger who met Jane that day. Time travel has brought John to the same point and the same things start to happen the same way again, as revealed by John to the barkeep.
He again falls in love with Jane and shares intimate moments with her. In a way, John and Jane are the same persons who come from different timelines through time travel, and things are repeated this time also.
Here, the barkeep who is watching all this happening from a distance leaves the spot and travels to 2nd March 1970, the day when the incident of bomb disposal took place in the first scene.
The Berkeep tries to get the fizzle bomber this time
Here, the barkeep arrives on the scene a little early, where the fizzle bomber is setting up the bomb. They have a little gunfight followed by a hand-to-hand fight. The fizzle bomber punches the barkeep hard, and the barkeep loses conscience for some time. After a few moments, the barkeep wakes up and hears a big blast, in which he sees the agent’s face getting burnt by the explosion, while the agent is trying to diffuse the bomb. It is the same opening scene of the movie, which is repeated here.
The Fizzle bomber escapes, and the barkeep helps the burnt agent with his time travel instrument, using which the agent vanishes back into 1992, like in the opening scene. At this point of the movie, it gets revealed here, that the barkeep is the same man who helped the agent in the first scene.
Now, after the agent vanishes, the barkeep using his own time machine travels to 1964. He appears in a room and is very exhausted by quick time travels.
Two persons from different time lines meet
Here, in 1963, the conversation between Jane and John takes place in a restaurant and they develop familiarity and proximity having notions that they have met before. The truth is that they are one and the same, though from different timelines.
Again, Barkeep is shown who has just traveled from the bomb scene of 1970 to 1964, when Jane delivered her daughter. Here, Mr. Robertson meets the Barkeep and tells him that he has made an illegal time travel jump, which can invite punishment from the bureau, and which can affect the barkeep’s health too. Barkeep regrets that due to his action, Jane will have to go through so much pain in the future. Mr. Robertson tells the barkeep, that the bureau can benefit more if there is an agent who works from outside.
Both are referring to John, who is shown busy talking to Jane. Mr. Robertson tells the barkeep that only he can do it, as he is free from any ancestry and has been in this world through a predestination paradox. Mr. Robertson leaves with his own time machine, and the barkeep moves ahead. Actually, they were talking to each other in the same hospital from where Jane’s baby was stolen.
Repetition of events takes place
After Robertson leaves, the barkeep enters the room where the babies are kept. As per the earlier scene of the movie, where baby Jane was stolen by someone from the hospital, the exact thing happens again. Hence, it proves that Barkeep was the man, who actually stole baby Jane, the story that John told Barkeep in 1970, before the backward time jump, while they were in the bar.
The scene moves to 1963 again where John, who after meeting his own self, a grown-up Jane, gets intimate with her.
And again, here in 1964, after stealing the baby Jane, the barkeep travels back to 1945 along with the baby Jane, and appears in front of the orphanage and drops the baby there, exactly the way baby Jane was dropped by someone, as narrated by John earlier. The barkeep calls the orphanage from the telephone booth, and the caretaker takes the baby inside, exactly what happened before.
After dropping the baby Jane at the orphanage in 1945, the barkeep again travels to 1963, where he had dropped John earlier, for him to find the man who ruined the life of Jane. He reaches the park where john is with Jane.
The paradox is repeated again in Jane’s life
While being with Jane in the park, John notices that the barkeep has arrived and gets up to meet him, telling Jane that he will be right back, the same scene that happened before, as narrated by John earlier to the Barkeep.
On meeting the Barkeep at a distance, John gets angry with him, as it gets clear that the barkeep knew everything from the beginning, but he didn’t tell John the entire thing. The barkeep tells him that this was the way it had to happen since it was predestined. He tells John that by now, you know who Jane is, and who you are, which means that both of them are the same but from different times.
The barkeep tells John that they will have to leave, to travel forward in time. Reluctantly, John leaves Jane behind, who keeps waiting for John on the bench. They both travel to 12th August 1985 and the barkeep tells John that he is about to perform the most important job, that a person can ever ask for. Leaving John to recover from the shock of a time travel jump of 22 years, the barkeep meets Mr. Robertson, who hands him some important leads, regarding the Fizzle bomber.
The retirement of the Agent Barkeep
The barkeep is about to approach his final destination, after which he is going to retire. He leaves a recorded message for John in a recorder, which contains the instructions for John about his mission. The barkeep visits his bar for the last time, bids goodbye to colleagues, and travels to 7th Jan 1975, close to the day of the New York bombing.
While trying to decommission the travel machine, he finds that it has developed some error, and the machine is not able to decommission itself. The barkeep starts to check the leads, that Mr. Robertson had given him while he was in 1985.
Jane becomes agent John
Here, John after recovering from shock is listening to the audio that the Barkeep had left for him. The message tells John that he has to prepare himself to become a Temporal agent.
The new john has transformed himself to replace the Barkeep in the Temporal agency and Mr. Robertson provides him a time travel machine for that.
After going through all the leads and clues regarding the Fizzle bomber, the barkeep comes to know that the fizzle bomber is present in the laundromat. This is just before that bomb blast, which the Fizzle bomber is about to detonate in New York. The barkeep reaches the Laundromat where the Fizzle bomber is present.
Barkeep is shocked on realizing the truth
Here, the movie takes a big turn, when the barkeep realizes that he himself is the future Fizzle bomber. He tries to kill the Fizzle bomber, but the Fizzle bomber tries to justify his actions and tries to convince the Barkeep, that by killing people he has actually saved more lives in the future.
He says that by killing people, the murderers of future events were also killed, which actually prevented future incidents involving the killing of thousands of lives. The Barkeep is not convinced and says that he has killed innocent lives as well. The barkeep says that in the next attack of the Fizzle bomber, 10,000 more people will be killed as well. The fizzle bomber tells the Barkeep, that he should not kill him, as all things are predestined and bound to happen. This paradox is the result of the Barkeep not reporting the decommissioning of the time machine to the authorities of the temporal bureau.
The Fizzle bomber again tries to convince the Barkeep, that everything is predestined and by not killing the Fizzle bomber, who is actually the barkeep himself of the future, the predestination paradox can be broken, otherwise, this chain will continue and the events will keep repeating themselves like a loop.
The Fizzle bomber advises the Barkeep that in order to stop this repetitive cyclic event, the Barkeep must not kill him which will prevent the barkeep to become the Fizzle bomber in the future.
The Fizzle Bomber is killed and the paradox continues like a loop
The Barkeep is not convinced and says that the Fizzle bomber is the murderer, and he himself will never become like him and thus kills him. But, the continuous time travel has an impact on the Barkeep’s mind, and turns him into a maniac and insane Fizzle bomber in the future. The traumatic and exhaustive time travel jumps, ultimately have an impact on his mental balance, and when he grows old, he actually becomes the Fizzle bomber, which the previous Fizzle bomber had warned him of, before being killed by the Barkeep.
Now, he has been killing innocents instead, in his endeavor to stop the future blasts, which in any case happen at different times due to the inevitable Predestination paradox. The movie ends here, but the mystery is revealed at the end.
The main connecting dots of the movie
Jane, John, the fizzle Bomber and the Barkeep, all are the same persons who come from different timelines, but meet each other to complete the predestination paradox. The agent who gets burned in the face in the blast from the first scene gets a new face of the Barkeep and after becoming the Barkeep, he travels to 1970, to meet his younger self who is John. After convincing John that he can put the person who ruined his life when he was female, he makes John travel to 1963. John meets his female form from the past, which is Jane and falls in love with her, and so John meets his own self from the past. John, who is the male form of Jane, has physical relations with his own female form of the past, from which a baby is born.
John leaves Jane on the behest of the Barkeep, to complete his predestined mission which is to join the Temporal Bureau. The Barkeep takes away baby Jane from the hospital and drops her at the orphanage. The Barkeep kills the Fizzle bomber and becomes the Fizzle bomber himself in the future.
In the meantime, John has joined the Bureau and tries to stop the Fizzle bomber, and in the process, is burnt in the face. He travels to the future and gets a new face. Here, baby Jane grows up, meets John, and falls in love with him. The cycle of events continues like that, and thus the predestination paradox works like a loop.
The movie round up
Now, we will briefly wind up the movie by connecting the dots of the timelines of the movie. In the first scene of the movie, there is an exchange of fire between agent John and the fizzle bomber. When the bomb goes off and the agent is badly burned on the face, he tries to reach for his violin-case-looking instrument. He is being helped by the Barkeep only, whose face is not shown in that scene. So, actually, the agent is John, the Fizzle bomber is the future Barkeep, and the Barkeep is John only, with a changed face, and who in turn is Jane only.
Therefore, All of them are one and the same people, but from different timelines who meet each other. In the movie, when the barkeep tells two jokes:
1) A guy walks into a bar and the second one
2) what comes first? The chicken or the egg?
Both these statements had deep meanings in the movie. The Barkeep referred to the entering of a guy into a bar as a joke, as the guy John actually was Jane, a past female. Another joke of the chicken or the egg statement was a reference to the Predestination loop on which the movie is based.
In another scene of the movie, John tells the Barkeep that like Jane, he doesn’t have a picture of his childhood and can’t remember how he looked in his childhood as Jane. Then in reply, the barkeeper tells John that she looked better than him. This statement also has significance in the movie, since now we know that the barkeep knew every detail of John’s past, as the Barkeep himself was John and Jane in the past.
