Limitless got off to a rocky start with me. The beginning of the movie centers on two premises I had a hard time swallowing -- first, that people only use 20 percent of their brains (misconception, see this fun Wikipedia page for more info), and second, that a first-time novelist can get a book contract without having written a word of the book in question (pul-lease, don't screenwriters know how publishing works?).
However, these aren't walk-out-of-the-theater issues. I'd accepted the only-20-percent premise when I bought my ticket, so I went with it. And the book-writing part of the film is soon dispensed with. That's actually part of the movie's problem -- it jumps from plotline to plotline, shuffling our protagonist's goals and problems in chaotic fashion, making it hard to get invested in any of them.
Let's start with the basics: Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is a down-and-out writer who is way behind on his deadline and getting dumped by his long-suffering girlfriend. He drinks and smokes too much, his tiny apartment is a sty, and he can't get motivated to do anything.
Then he gets his hands on an experimental drug that purports to open up his brain's untapped potential. Suddenly, he can see everything clearly. He remembers everything, connects everything, projects the future with startling accuracy. Soon enough he's dashed off his novel -- a brilliant masterpiece, naturally -- and moves on to conquering the stock market, effortlessly picking up new languages, and ingratiating himself with billionaire tycoons.
The problem? Well, there are several. People are getting killed around him, someone seems to be following him, and he's having occasional episodes of time-gap memory loss. And for a super-smart guy, he keeps making careless mistakes. Oh, and he's going to run out of his pill stash at some point, and he's not sure where he's going to get more.
Limitless is chock-full of fascinating concepts. If you can have anything, will anything ever be enough? How much does what you know, and what you can know, affect who you are? What are the consequences of skipping over the hard lessons that actually struggling for success can teach? For these ideas, and the post-viewing discussion they provoked, I'm pleased with the movie. I was also gratified by the movie's ending, which didn't exactly take the bleak turn that's typical for this kind of be-careful-what-you-wish-for story.
However, structurally this thing is a mess. Eddie's goals, priorities, and urgent threats shift from scene to scene, and it's difficult to worry about any of them, since his super-brain means he can think his way to any victory and out of any quagmire. His one true problem -- the lack of a limitless supply of pills -- is pushed off center stage by all the ancillary plotlines. If I'm not worried about a character, I'm not emotionally invested in the movie, which means the experience of watching it is all on the surface.
In other words, my brain was engaged -- possibly 100 percent of it. But my heart was not.
Ellen Henderson is a novelist and web strategist. She lives in Dallas, Texas, with her husband and son.
