equilibrium movie review

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"Equilibrium'' would be a mindless action picture, except that it has a mind. It doesn't do a lot of deep thinking, but unlike many futuristic combos of sf and f/x, it does make a statement: Freedom of opinion is a threat to totalitarian systems. Dictatorships of both the left and right are frightened by the idea of their citizens thinking too much, or having too much fun.

The movie deals with this notion in the most effective way, by burying it in the story and almost drowning it with entertainment. In a free society many, maybe most, audience members will hardly notice the message. But there are nations and religions that would find this movie dangerous. You know who you are.

The movie is set in the 21st century--hey! that's our century!--at a time after the Third World War. That war was caused, it is believed, because citizens felt too much and too deeply. They got all worked up and started bombing each other. To assure world peace and the survival of the human race, everyone has been put on obligatory doses of Prozium, a drug that dampens the emotions and shuts down our sensual side. (Hint: The working title of this movie was "Librium.") In the movie, enforcers known as Clerics have the mandate to murder those who are considered Sense Offenders. This is a rich irony, since True Believers, not Free Thinkers, are the ones eager to go to war over their beliefs. If you believe you have the right to kill someone because of your theology, you are going about God's work in your way, not His.

Christian Bale stars in "Equilibrium," as Cleric John Preston, partnered with Partridge ( Sean Bean ) as a top-level enforcer. Nobody can look dispassionate in the face of outrageous provocation better than Bale, and he proves it here after his own wife is incinerated for Sense Offenses. "What did you feel?" he is asked. "I didn't feel anything," he replies, and we believe him, although perhaps this provides a clue about his wife's need to Offend.

Preston is a top operative, but is hiding something. We see him pocketing a book that turns out to be the collected poetry of W.B. Yeats, a notorious Sense Offender. He has kept it, he explains, to better understand the enemy (the same reason censors have historically needed to study pornography). His duties bring him into contact with Mary O'Brien ( Emily Watson ), and he feels--well, it doesn't matter what he feels. To feel at all is the offense. Knowing that, but remembering Mary, he deliberately stops taking his Prozium: He loves being a Cleric, but, oh, you id.

If "Equilibrium" has a plot borrowed from 1984, Brave New World and other dystopian novels, it has gunfights and martial arts borrowed from the latest advances in special effects. More rounds of ammunition are expended in this film than in any film I can remember, and I remember " The Transporter ." I learn from Nick Nunziata at CHUD.com that the form of battle used in the movie is "Gun-Kata," which is "a martial art completely based around guns." I credit Nunziata because I think he may have invented this term. The fighters transcribe the usual arcs in mid-air and do impossible acrobatics, but mostly use guns instead of fists and feet. That would seem to be cheating, and involves a lot of extra work (it is much easier to shoot someone without doing a back-flip), but since the result is loud and violent it is no doubt worth it.

There is an opening sequence in which Preston and Partridge approach an apartment where Offenders are holed up, and Preston orders the lights to be turned out in the apartment. Then he enters in the dark. As nearly as I could tell, he is in the middle of the floor, surrounded by Offenders with guns. A violent gun battle breaks out, jerkily illuminated by flashes of the guns, and everyone is killed but Preston. There is nothing about this scene that even attempts to be plausible, confirming a suspicion I have long held, that the heroes of action movies are protected by secret hexes and cannot be killed by bullets.

There are a lot more similar battles, which are pure kinetic energy, made of light, noise and quick cutting. They seem to have been assembled for victims of Attention Deficit Syndrome, who are a large voting block at the box office these days. The dispassionate observer such as myself, refusing to Sense Offense my way through such scenes, can nevertheless admire them as a technical exercise.

What I like is the sneaky way Kurt Wimmer's movie advances its philosophy in between gun battles. It argues, if I am correct, that it is good to feel passion and lust, to love people and desire them, and to experience voluptuous pleasure through great works of music and art. In an early scene Cleric Preston blow-torches the 'Mona Lisa,' the one painting you can be pretty sure most moviegoers will recognize. But in no time he is feeling joy and love, and because he is the hero, this must be good, even though his replacement partner, Cleric Brandt ( Taye Diggs ), suspects him, and wants to expose him.

The rebel group in "Equilibrium" preserves art and music (there is a touching scene where Preston listens to a jazz record), and we are reminded of Bradbury and Truffaut's "Fahrenheit 451," where book lovers committed banned volumes to memory. One is tempted to look benevolently upon "Equilibrium" and assume thought control can't happen here, but of course it can, which is why it is useful to have an action picture in which the Sense Offenders are the good guys.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Equilibrium (2002)

Rated R For Violence

106 minutes

Christian Bale as John Preston

Emily Watson as Mary O'Brien

Taye Diggs as Brandt

Angus MacFadyen as Dupont

Sean Bean as Partridge

Oliver Brandl as Polygraph Technician

Francesco Cabras as Rebel Leader

Written and Directed by

• Kurt Wimmer

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Equilibrium Reviews

The costuming, set designs, and music (by Klaus Badelt, which is actually spectacular) are far more impressive than anyone might expect.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 29, 2020

Though ultimately silly, Equilibrium's shopworn but stylish synthesis of ammo and ideas is surprisingly engrossing.

Full Review | Apr 17, 2019

A balanced thriller.

Kurt Wimmer's Equilibrium is a dreary sci-fi action movie set after the Third World War in a dystopia from which all dangerous human emotion has been drained by the daily injection of the drug Prozium and the burning of art and books.

This medium-budgeted, futuristic action tale that arrives on screens with precious little fanfare is, to my mind, the best film I've seen all year.

Despite often being preposterous and heavy-handed, there are enough slick visuals to offset the overall silliness, and the displays of "Gun-kata" - a blend of martial arts and gunplay - provide some blistering action scenes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 17, 2019

It's hard not to feel you've just watched a feature-length video game with some really heavy back story.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 17, 2019

Violent post-nuclear sci-fi is Orwellian.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 24, 2010

Channels the themes of George Orwell and the action of John Woo wonderfully.

Full Review | Apr 29, 2009

Who knew that a reunion of Metroland stars Bale and Watson could yield something so downright nutty?

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 31, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 7, 2008

An engaging ride, with some quicksilver moves.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jul 30, 2007

Bale is too self-conscious an action hero, and although the script may have the virtue of transparent plagiarism, it teeters both dramatically and conceptually.

Full Review | Jan 26, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 5, 2005

It only adds unneeded celluloid to an increasingly tired genre!

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Jan 24, 2005

C'est un film qui rivalise avec les plus gros blockbusters hollywoodiens. Je l'ai trouv beaucoup plus satisfaisant que The Matrix Reloaded.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Dec 16, 2004

... Equilibrium is one of the better action/sci-fi movies of the year ...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 6, 2004

If you were disappointed by recent sci-fi actioners like Terminator 3, then you'd probably be pleasantly surprised by this underappreciated movie . . .

Full Review | Sep 18, 2003

Wimmer delivers the already labored story with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Sep 6, 2003

50% homage to the classic science fiction touchstones and 50% damn solid in its own right.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 8, 2003

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Equilibrium, common sense media reviewers.

Violent post-nuclear sci-fi is Orwellian.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Violence and peril.

Some strong language.

Sci-fi drug use.

Parents need to know that this film is violent. The opening scenes show a sense police raid, involving much shooting and death. The closing scenes are of greater violence, big explosions and more death. In between there is intermittent violence and death. Despite this, the film isn't unusually violent for this…

Violence & Scariness

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this film is violent. The opening scenes show a sense police raid, involving much shooting and death. The closing scenes are of greater violence, big explosions and more death. In between there is intermittent violence and death. Despite this, the film isn't unusually violent for this kind of movie, and the deaths aren't gory. Some younger children might be upset by the sense police's arrest and abduction of Preston's wife in front of her young family. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (2)
• Kids say (12)

Based on 2 parent reviews

There are nude paintings. We don't do movies with that stuff, just warning others as well

Not a problem, except for the hokey face sliding off, what's the story.

Equilibrium is set in the joyless state of Libria, a post-nuclear apocalypse, early 21st-century society where all human emotions are outlawed in order to prevent war. Any materials, such as books or artworks, that might cause people to feel sensations are destroyed, as are those who engage in their production, dissemination or appreciation. Human instincts are kept in check through the mind-numbing drug Prozium. The protectors of this violent peace are the "clerics." They are highly trained to detect anyone failing to take Prozium doses and destroy members of the underground. John Preston ( Christian Bale ) is a leading cleric, ruthless in his tracking down and eradicating of sense criminals, even those closest to him. However, after a potent meeting with underground member, Mary ( Emily Watson ), and a missed dose of Prozium, Preston begins to have feelings, and decides to bring down the system from the inside, a dangerous mission indeed.

Is It Any Good?

This intense, unsettling film draws heavily from George Orwell's classic, 1984 . Writer/director Kurt Wimmer substitutes "Big Brother" for "Father," whose voice and features are projected across Libria on enormous television screens, constantly reminding people of the dangers of the natural human state and the devastation it had led to in earlier, less sophisticated societies. Where Orwell has "thought police," Wimmer has "sense police." States in Orwell's world subdue their populations by the need to maintain their war efforts, while Libria's justifies the abuse of its people through the notion of sustaining peace.

There are a number of interesting issues that Equilibrium sets up to address. In discussions with children these could easily be drawn out, but the film itself descends into a predictable and formulaic shoot-em-up sci-fi action movie. The ninja-based gun fighting style used by the clerics verges on the balletic, but for any admirer of this film genre, they will have witnessed almost identical scenes in The Matrix.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how Preston, emotion and beauty win over the dour, controlling Librian state, yet rather than straightforward tales of good over evil, the film leads one to question these opposing concepts. Peace is surely good, but in this case evil derives from an all-consuming quest for peace, which itself breeds violence. Familes can also talk about how the importance of love, loyalty and joy abound in this film, but glory is associated with violence and destruction

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 6, 2002
• On DVD or streaming : May 13, 2003
• Cast : Christian Bale , Sean Bean , Taye Diggs
• Director : Kurt Wimmer
• Inclusion Information : Black actors
• Studio : Dimension
• Genre : Science Fiction
• Run time : 107 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : violence
• Last updated : July 10, 2023

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FILM REVIEW

FILM REVIEW; Preventing World War IV By Outlawing All Emotion

By Elvis Mitchell

• Dec. 6, 2002

In ''Equilibrium,'' which takes place in the not too distant future, emotion has been outlawed. But some things are still the same; the Cadillac STS is still available (though masking tape is applied to hide its markings). And it is driven by a new breed of law-enforcement officer called -- and please don't laugh until I finish this -- Grammaton Cleric, assigned to squash the sense crimes of what could be called the emotion underground.

The Clerics -- who are all men, so women are even more repressed -- practice a particularly nasty martial and handgun art called Gunkata. In the near future, I guess, bullets are neither deadly nor photogenic enough to accomplish the job.

One of these men, John Preston (Christian Bale), is at the center of ''Equilibrium,'' a ridiculous sci-fi action melodrama and breath mint. If someone left ''1984,'' ''Fahrenheit 451,'' ''Brave New World,'' ''Gattaca'' and the Sylvester Stallone potboilers ''Judge Dredd'' and ''Demolition Man'' out in the sun and threw the runny glop onto a movie screen, it would still be a better picture than ''Equilibrium,'' a movie that could be stupider only if it were longer.

Emotion, it seems, caused a third world war. To prevent a fourth, feelings have been made illegal, done away with by a drug called Prozium, which citizens administer to themselves daily. Based on the slender, concave shape of faces of the future, Prozium is as effective a weight-loss tool as those sandwiches at Subway.

The slender, sleek Preston has repressed everything about himself, including Mr. Bale's English accent. He has the mid-Atlantic vowels of one of the D.J.'s at a Virgin megastore. Devoted and loyal in carrying out the orders of the government, Preston stumbles into the underground when it turns out that one of them was (gasp) right next to him -- his own Cleric partner, whom he executes.

His confidence shaken because he thought himself intuitive enough to know what was going on in the mind of any man, Preston is given an ambitious and perhaps even more empathetic young partner, Brandt (Taye Diggs, whose cheekbones are even more beautiful than Mr. Bale's). And there are further fissures in Preston's resolve; his wife was also executed for sense crimes, leaving him a widower with two young children.

When he starts to have, um, feelings for the beautiful underground member (Emily Watson) he has just arrested, a question arises: Will Preston forsake the road before him for the pursuit of real, live emotion?

''Equilibrium,'' which opens nationwide today, is pretty silly stuff. The writer and director, Kurt Wimmer, has obviously made a movie where independent thought has been banished, since the whole picture looks like Ridley Scott's Orwellian Apple commercial from 1984. I'm as up as anyone for a well-staged action sequence, but the punches thrown here make the movie look as if it was based on a video game.

The Clerics' fascist chic wardrobe and their Gunkata will probably have the makers of ''The Matrix'' scouring every frame for copyright infringement. The true sleaziness comes after Preston beats a brace of fellow cops to their bloody, picturesque deaths to protect a puppy from execution. Just when you think ''Equilibrium'' can't sink any lower, the movie slaughters shame, too.

''Equilibrium'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has strong language, gunfights, advanced pistol whipping, suggestions of immolation and threats to a tail-wagging pooch.

EQUILIBRIUM

Written and directed by Kurt Wimmer; director of photography, Dion Beebe; edited by Tom Rolf and William Yeh; music by Klaus Badelt; production designer, Wolf Kroeger; produced by Jan De Bont and Lucas Foster; released by Dimension Films. Running time: 100 minutes. This film is rated R.

WITH: Christian Bale (John Preston), Emily Watson (Mary O'Brien), Taye Diggs (Brandt), Angus MacFadyen (Dupont), Sean Bean (Partridge), Matthew Harbour (Robbie Preston) and William Fichtner (Jurgen).

• Cast & crew
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Equilibrium

• In an oppressive future where all forms of feeling are illegal, a man in charge of enforcing the law rises to overthrow the system and state.
• In a futuristic world, a strict regime has eliminated war by suppressing emotions: books, art and music are strictly forbidden and feeling is a crime punishable by death. Cleric John Preston (Bale) is a top ranking government agent responsible for destroying those who resist the rules. When he misses a dose of Prozium, a mind-altering drug that hinders emotion, Preston, who has been trained to enforce the strict laws of the new regime, suddenly becomes the only person capable of overthrowing it. — Anonymous
• At the end of World War III, the world fell under the control of Father and the Tetragrammaton: a government that outlaws all forms of art and emotion. Citizens are forced to take drugs that eliminate emotions. However, "Sense Offenders": citizens who resist the laws and operate underground are continually at war with the Tetragrammaton. John Preston is a Cleric, an elite super-soldier who's mission is to hunt down and eliminate Sense Offenders with the help of a ruthless police force. One day, Preston accidentally breaks his morning dose of emotion suppressant drug and begins to feel. Soon, he begins sympathizing with the Sense Offenders and begins to understand the beauty of feeling... A beauty that the government, in which Preston spent his life serving, would like to see destroyed. — redcommander27
• In the future, after the Third World War, the world is ruled by a totalitarian and fascist society with the leadership of 'The Father'. Arts, music, books, luxury and feelings are not acceptable, and persons uses a drug called 'Prozium' in a daily basis to repress their feelings and feel happy. The opponents to this new world are called offenders and they form the underground resistance to the system, who are destroyed by very-well trained and powerful agents called 'The Clericks'. John Preston is one of this agents, and his life changes when he misses his daily dose of 'Prozium'. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Equilibrium is set in the futuristic, and dystopian city-state of Libria. The film explains how, in the early years of the 21st century, a devastating Third World War breaks out, the impact of which brings civilizations across the planet to their knees. After the war ends, world leaders fear that the human race cannot possibly survive a Fourth World War, and so set about building a new society which is free of conflict. Believing that human emotion is responsible for man's inhumanity to man, the new leaders ban all materials deemed likely to stimulate strong emotions, including art, music, and literature. These materials are rated "EC-10" for "emotional content" (a reference to the MPAA film rating system), and are typically destroyed by immediate incineration. Furthermore, all citizens of Libria are required to take regular injections, called "intervals," of a liquid drug called Prozium, collected at the distribution centers known as "Equilibrium". Libria is governed by the Tetragrammaton Council, which is led by a reclusive figurehead known as "Father". Father never interacts with anyone outside the ruling council, but his image is omnipresent throughout the city in a strong cult of personality. The Tetragrammaton Council strives to create identical lives for all Librians and uses its police state apparatus to enforce unity and conformity. At the pinnacle of Librian law enforcement are the Grammaton Clerics, who are trained in the deadly martial art of Gun Kata, an art which teaches users to predict the actions of opponents during firearm combat. The Clerics exist for the purpose of locating and destroying EC-10 materials and for pursuing, apprehending, and, if necessary, terminating "sense-offenders" - people guilty of feeling emotions. Despite the efforts of the police and Clerics, a resistance movement exists in Libria, known as "The Underground". Members of this movement are responsible for terrorist activity against Libria, specifically against the Prozium factories. The leaders of the Underground believe that if they can disrupt the production and distribution of Prozium for a short period of time, even a single day, then the Librians will rise up and destroy the Tetragrammaton Council. The Underground operates within Libria itself, but also has contact with resistance groups residing in "The Nethers", the ruins of cities destroyed during World War III. These outsiders hoard objects and artefacts from the old society before World War III, including art and literature. Subsequently, they are the targets of Librian death squads composed of police and Clerics. The film's protagonist, Grammaton Cleric First Class John Preston (Christian Bale), is Libria's highest ranking cleric. He is a widower whose wife (Maria Pia Calzone) was executed after being revealed to be a sense offender, leaving him with two children, Robbie (Matthew Harbour) and Lisa (Emily Siewert). After a raid on a group of resistance members in The Nethers, Preston notices that his partner, Grammaton Cleric First Class Errol Partridge (Sean Bean), has personally taken a copy of the poems of Yeats under false pretenses. Preston discovers that Partridge has not turned the book over for destruction and follows him to a ruined cathedral in The Nethers, where Partridge speaks of emotion and forces Preston to aid him in suicide by cop. Shortly afterwards, Preston accidentally breaks the vial of his morning dose of Prozium, and begins to experience emotions. Preston is assigned a new partner, the career-conscious Brandt (Taye Diggs). Following a standard police raid on a Librian woman, Mary O'Brien (Emily Watson), who has stopped taking Prozium, his emotional confusion is exacerbated during her interrogation. He first acts out of emotion when he makes an excuse not to execute a puppy in The Nethers. Preston has by now ceased taking Prozium and is forced to try and maintain his monotone and emotionless façade in front of his son and the increasingly suspicious Brandt. Over the course of the film, Preston's behavior increasingly mirrors that of Partridge in the beginning, even to the point of repeated dialogue. Soon, Preston is involved in illegal activities. During one visit to the Nethers, he is forced to kill several Librian policemen who find the rescued puppy in his car. Brandt, having seen Preston re-arranging his desk (signaling a dislike of conformity) and refusing to personally execute resistance members during a raid in the Nethers, becomes more suspicious. In consequence, Preston is summoned before Vice-Counsel DuPont (Angus Macfadyen), and explains that he is attempting to infiltrate the Resistance in order to destroy it. DuPont tells him that he has heard rumors of a cleric attempting to join the Resistance, and Preston promises to find this traitor. Preston soon makes contact with the Resistance. He agrees to assassinate Father (Sean Pertwee), an act which will create enough confusion for the Underground to detonate bombs in Libria's Prozium factories and hopefully bring down the Tetragrammaton Council. However, watching Mary O'Brien's execution in Libria's furnaces causes Preston to weep uncontrollably, and Brandt arrests him. Brandt brings Preston before DuPont; Preston, however, tricks DuPont into believing Brandt was the criminal. Apparently cleared, Preston is released. He returns home to destroy his stashed Prozium before police find it, and is confronted by his young son, who reveals to Preston that he and his sister have not taken Prozium for some time, and have hidden his cache of Prozium. As part of an elaborate plot formed with the Underground, the leaders of the Resistance turn themselves in to Preston, who persuades DuPont to grant him an audience with Father. Preston arrives for his audience with Father, and is confronted by Father in a sudden reversal. Via a telescreen, Father speaks to Preston, revealing that he has been aware of Preston's sense-offense, and has staged Brandt's arrest in order to lull Preston into a false sense of security and allow him to think that his assassination scheme can go ahead. The face on the telescreen changes, revealing the face of Vice-Council DuPont, who explains that the real Father died years before, and that the Tetragrammaton Council elected DuPont as the new Head of State. Preston, however, embarks on a rampage using concealed pistols that he uses in order to reach Brandt and DuPont. Preston and Brandt face each other using paired short swords (similar in size and shape to the Japanese wakizashi), but Preston easily dispatches Brandt. Preston and DuPont then confront each other with handguns in a battle of Gun Kata masters, during which Preston manages to get the upper hand and kills DuPont. Preston then destroys the propaganda machines which broadcast across Libria, and the device which projects holographic images of Father. Realizing that the Tetragrammaton Council is faced with a crisis, the Underground detonates their bombs and the prisoners are released. The film ends with a riot signaling the destruction of the Librian government.

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Equilibrium

This week's films

Reviews in chronological order (Total 14 reviews)

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Equilibrium Review

14 Mar 2003

107 minutes

Equilibrium

Matrix knock-offs have been oddly sparse considering the gargantuan success of the original, probably something to do with the mind-bending expense of flo-mo. Still, it was inevitable they'd turn up eventually, and Equilibrium has enough daft energy and bargain-basement spectacle to make up for the obviousness of its source of inspiration.

All the usual B-movie sci-fi elements are satisfyingly present and correct, including a fascistic ruling elite who like nothing more than gunning down puppies (they'll be the bad guys, then).

Christian Bale hones the unexpected talent for action heroics he demonstrated in Reign Of Fire, as well as delivering his apparently contractually demanded sweaty torso shot. Meanwhile, the dippy contrivance of gun-based martial art 'gun-kata' provides pleasingly nerve-shattering firefights (a gun massacre illuminated only by the flash of the muzzle flare is an atmospheric standout).

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Movies | 09 08 2019

Equilibrium Movie Explained: A Hidden Sci-Fi Gem?

Nineteen Eighty-Four mixed with futuristic elements, gun kata, and Matrix-esque aesthetics—Kurt Wimmer recreates an enthralling blend in his action-thriller Equilibrium , released in 2002.  The story unfolds in a dystopian future where a post-WWIII world falls into tyranny and totalitarianism. Libria, a new state ruled by Father, makes all sorts of emotions illegal, just like the things that can evoke them, like art or music. The movie focuses on John Preston, a high-ranking Grammaton Cleric, who is supposed to enforce the regime but starts to feel.  Here’s the plot of the movie Equilibrium explained; spoilers ahead.

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To find where to stream any movie or series based on your country, use This Is Barry’s Where To Watch .

Oh, and if this article doesn’t answer all of your questions, drop me a comment or an FB chat message, and I’ll get you the answer .  You can find other film explanations using the search option on top of the site.

Here are links to the key aspects of the movie:

• – Who Is Errol Partridge?
• – Who Is John Preston?
• – What Is Prozium II?
• – Mechanization of Society
• – The Role of Viviana Preston
• – Manifestations of Preston’s Emotions
• – What Is the Significance of Mary O’Brien?
• – Who Is Father? Does He Feel?
• – Ending Explained

Who Is Errol Partridge?

Equilibrium starts with a Cleric raid against the Underground, a resistance movement. Preston, together with his partner Partridge, destroys illegal artworks and books, except Errol casually saves one, The Poetry of William Butler Yeats . This is when we understand that he feels. 

Preston executes his partner for a sense crime a few moments later when he finds him reading the book in an abandoned church. In his last moments, Partridge reads him one of the poems and then raises the book to shield himself. According to an analysis by a top paper writer from essay help service, an academic writing platform for students, Partridge uses literature as his last weapon. He stands by his beliefs and is ready to die for them. The last lines he says are from a poem: 

I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

These words will appear in the movie again, just like Preston will parallel the identical scene with Partridge as he takes a book from a different raid, this time for himself. Partridge’s willingness to die for his ideas is a turning point in Preston’s development. 

Who Is John Preston?

The story doesn’t tell us much about Preston’s background. Actually, he isn’t even supposed to have one. His life is his service. Preston is a Grammaton Cleric, an elite law enforcement order that does clean-up raids to eliminate any manifestations of emotions in Libria. 

Preston is the best at it. He’s a perfect soldier of the Tetragrammaton Council who can tell when a person starts to feel emotions and makes no mistakes. Paradoxically, his steel-like self-control and mastery in serving the regime are the things that destroy it. 

The decision to feel emotion is a choice for Preston. It’s obviously easier to live without them. But this ease and comfort also means the loss of freedom and human rights. The regime sets the rules, but a person decides if they want to play by them. It’s a choice – either to be complicit and give up on your humanity or to fight for things you believe in and demand justice. In this sense, Equilibrium mirrors real-life totalitarianism versus a society that is willing (or not) to resist.

What Is Prozium II?

The devastation and destruction caused by the Third World War served as an excuse for the ruling regime of Libria to ban all human emotions. A psychoactive drug Prozium II should be self-administered by all citizens to prevent this cause of human violence and hatred against each other. 

Naturally, alongside erasing anger, fear, and sadness, it wipes away happiness and compassion. People become incapable of love or friendship. The only aim of their lives is blind servitude to the state. By claiming to end wars, the regime declares war on its people and their human nature.

Mechanization of Society in Equilibrium

The goal of the regime in Equilibrium is to turn people into machines, incapable of emotions that can drive them to protest against the ideology imposed by the government. This mechanization of the human mind and body is used as a tool. Without emotions, people become alienated from each other and easier to be manipulated. While the feeling of absolute peace and “equilibrium” might be desired, it deprives people of feelings of what it means to be alive. 

All people in Libria look the same. They wear emotionless expressions and plain dark uniforms that make them similar to living robots. They stop being subjects. With no inner life, no wants, and no affections, citizens of Libria are “something,” not “someone.”

What Is the Mise-en-Scene of Equilibrium?

The mise-en-scene of Equilibrium is filled with codes and meanings. At the beginning of the movie, we see Preston with his partner Partridge during one of their raids against the resistance. The setting shows destroyed and abandoned buildings where the resistance members try to hide the remnants of the normal world: books, paintings, record players, and small knick-knacks that have some style and color to them. 

Yet, the goal of the regime is to destroy anything that may make a person feel. We see the Mona Lisa, a masterpiece of the Renaissance, hidden under the floorboards. At this point, even the rhythm of the movie slows down as the portrait gets destroyed in flames, and Mona Lisa smiles through it as a symbol of indestructible hope.

Another metaphorical code is a deserted church. The symbol of faith and protection is no longer safe or sacred. The fact that this is the place where Preston kills his partner shows the complete degradation and dehumanization of society.

Kurt Wimmer uses setting, colors, and arrangement of objects to communicate senses. While the resistance holds on to things like antique mirror frames and photos that are outlawed, the setting of offices, streets, and residential buildings in Libria are all the same. Everything looks sterile, devoid of any personality. The colors are so desaturated the film seems almost black-and-white. The composition is strictly symmetric, based on right angles and uniform placement of objects within the frame of a shot. This conveys the sense of conformity, sameness, and total control that reigns in Libria. 

The Role of Viviana Preston

The episode where DuPond questions Preston on the arrest of his wife proves that he has been experiencing emotions long before discontinuing Prozium injections. Again, the movie uses the language of light and color to convey their love for each other. 

When DuPont reminds Preston of Viviana, the scene gets interrupted by a contrasting flashback. Here the woman gets arrested as a sense offender. What is peculiar about this episode is that her sole presence makes the world more colorful and bright in his memory. It shows that despite oppression, Preston was capable of love. Although he couldn’t openly mourn the loss of Viviana because his emotions were suppressed by Prozium, this tragedy unconsciously triggered him to start questioning his beliefs.

Manifestations of Preston’s Emotions

The real transformation for Preston starts when he drops a vial with his injection and misses a shot. He starts to see dreams and experience sensations. Preston needs to rediscover beauty for himself. The character breaks a film on his window and sees a rainbow and rising sun for the first time in years. When heading to work, he removes his glow to experience the world by touch. Even the sensation of a stair railing under his hand feels new and exciting. 

Without drugs, Preston starts to notice oppression even in little things. Objects on his colleagues’ desks are the same and placed in the same spots on every desk of every Cleric. Rearranging stationery on his desk is a way for Preston to protest. 

What Is the Significance of Mary O’Brien?

One of the pivotal moments of the movie happens when Preston meets Mary O’Brien. Just like his wife Viviana, she is a sense offender, and just like her, she is to be executed or “processed” in the language of the Tetragrammaton Council. Mary stirs up Preston’s emotions. During interrogations, she challenges his beliefs, asking what he lives for and if he knows what a friend is. 

However, the role of Mary in Preston’s life is much greater. Her appearance in his life is his second chance: to love and do the right thing. He tries to save Mary and stop the execution, something he didn’t do for Viviana. Even though it’s too late, with Mary’s ribbon in his hand, Preston turns from evil to righteous.

Equilibrium Movie: Who Is Father? Does He Feel?

As is typical in totalitarian regimes, a great leader is no more than an image. Father is fiction, a God-life figure created by propaganda. Being long dead, his image was used to spread manipulation through the screens with his propaganda all around Libria. 

The power, however, is concentrated in the hands of a very real person. DuPont, a vice-counsel of Father, is full of hatred, anger, and self-indulgence. He is a typical symbol of the totalitarian elite. Someone who spreads false ideas only seeking power and control. 

The setting plays an important role in understanding DuPont as well. While the whole of Libria is condemned to be a dark and colorless place, his office has bright walls, heavy red curtains, artworks, Tuscan columns, and antique furniture. He feels emotions and indulges in every forbidden luxury.

Equilibrium Movie: Ending Explained

The ending of the movie Equilibrium reveals that DuPont is now Father and he has tricked Preston into exposing the Underground. Preston battles and kills Brandt and goes after DuPont. In the finale, Preston kills DuPont and exposes Father’s propaganda. With the Prozium plants destroyed, the world will feel once again. While the film ends on a positive note, humans are going to be humans and eventually go to war with each other.

Equilibrium Movie: Final Thoughts

Equilibrium received rather mixed reviews from the critics. Some criticize it for heavy reliance on other dystopian works and a lack of original message. But as Roger Ebert noted, it “would be a mindless action picture, except that it has a mind.” Its complex characters and mise-en-scene convey a strong message. 

Besides, as the real world faces a crisis upon crisis, dystopian movies like Equilibrium acquire new senses and become more relevant. Although rather underrated, the film is well-worth seeing. It is action-packed, symbolic, and gives you another chance to enjoy an exceptional performance of Christian Bale.

What were your thoughts on the plot and ending of the movie Equilibrium? Leave a comment below!

Barry is a technologist who helps start-ups build successful products. His love for movies and production has led him to write his well-received film explanation and analysis articles to help everyone appreciate the films better. He’s regularly available for a chat conversation on his website and consults on storyboarding from time to time. Click to browse all his film articles

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Equilibrium Reviews

• 33   Metascore
• 1 hr 47 mins
• Suspense, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction
• Watchlist Where to Watch

In this futuristic thriller, set in a postapocalyptic world where emotions have been outlawed, a top government enforcer entrusted with seeking and destroying offenders finds his loyalty questioned when his true feelings are exposed.

1984 for Dummies, with a healthy dollop of MATRIX-style special effects and a fiery dash of FARENHEIT 451. In the aftermath of WWIII, visionary leader Father (Sean Pertwee) decreed that the key to mankind's survival lies in suppressing man's volatile nature. The citizens of Libria, the new nation that rose from the ashes of the old, must take daily doses of Prozium, a drug that dulls the senses and calms the passions that lead to rage, fear, jealousy and hatred. Loss of the ability to be moved by music and art, appreciate the beauty of nature or feel love is the price that must be paid. "Sense criminals" who refuse Prozium are hunted down by "grammatron clerics," elite law enforcement agents trained from childhood as emotionless killing machines. Top cleric John Preston (Christian Bale) can anticipate a sense crime almost before it's committed; he stood by as his wife (Maria Pia Calzone) was executed, and killed his own partner (Sean Bean) for reading a book of poetry. Then circumstances conspire to rob Preston of one day's Prozium dose, and his slumbering senses stir. Curious, he deliberately skips another dose and begins to realize the horror of life without feeling. Preston recoils inwardly when he and his new partner (Taye Diggs) arrest sense criminal Mary O'Brien (Emily Watson), and a new assignment — to infiltrate the underground rebels who oppose Libria's culture of conformity, given to him by none other than Father's right-hand man (Angus MacFadyen) — forces a choice between duty and the fledgling realization that that life without pleasure or pain is mere existence. Credit to writer and first-time director Kurt Wimmer for wanting to make a science-fiction movie that explores serious ideas and aims to serve as a wake-up call to those willing to surrender their freedoms for the promise of totalitarian safety. It even might make you think, if you've never read any of the giants of dystopian literature: George Orwell, Philip K. Dick, Aldous Huxley et al. The film's look is perfectly tailored to its themes, from the dingy cinematography to the monumental CGI set design (Albert Spier would have been proud) and identity-erasing costumes in somber shades of gray (the exception, of course, is the clerics' costume — fascists always have the best uniforms). But flashy, MATRIX-style action sequences trump ideas; it's hard not to feel you've just watched a feature-length video game with some really heavy back story.

Equilibrium (2002)

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EQUILIBRIUM

"challenging blind faith".

What You Need To Know:

EQUILIBRIUM is a story about a futuristic society that has eliminated the possibility of World War IV by keeping human emotions in check with a drug called Prozium. Anything that might stir emotions in the population is contraband. The possession of art, music and poetry is punishable by death. John Preston (Christian Bale) is a cleric in charge of hunting down renegades that have stopped taking their Prozium. Those who resist arrest are ruthlessly mowed down with machine guns. Contraband is destroyed with flamethrowers. Those who submit to arrest are interrogated and then incinerated. One morning, John accidentally misses his dose for the day and discovers the world of “feelings.” As he hides his daily unused Prozium and goes on more raids, he begins to understand the plight of the “sensers.” John finally connects with the resistance. He has to make a choice: will he turn them in, or will he help them destroy “Father” and set society free?

One man seeing the light and saving the world from an evil oppressor makes for a good story. Yet, the extreme, highly stylized violence and problematic worldview elements of EQUILIBRIUM disqualifies it from family fare.

(HH, So, Pa, L, VVV, D, M) Humanist worldview where man’s own efforts, fueled by self-disciplined emotions, can overcome evil with civil disobedience, in deceptive way, to undermine an evil government and pagan society, in context of story, obeys “Father” – an image constantly before them brainwashing them to do as they should as well as socialist in that all are forced to be the same for the benefit of the whole; one “F-bomb” played for laughs, three permutations of one profanity (G.D.); extreme violence with lots of bodies torn up by bullets (little blood), karate, arms and legs broken (some blood spurts from a compound fracture), martial art sword play, death by swords, one man’s face is cut off (little blood), allusion to slaughter of pet dogs in kennel (nothing seen – yipping heard), man’s dead body seen on slab under sheet, explosion of several buildings in city; forced drug use rebuked; and, miscellaneous immorality such as forcing people to obey totalitarian rules.

More Detail:

EQUILIBRIUM is a story similar to Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s 1984. A futuristic society, in response to the carnage of World War III has eliminated the possibility of World War IV by keeping human emotions in check with a drug called Prozium. Every citizen must administer a dose of Prozium on a daily basis at the sound of an alarm. The injection keeps them in a robotic state and their world runs smoothly.

Anything that might stir emotions in the population is contraband. The possession of art, music and poetry is punishable by death. The top-ranking government official is a cleric named John Preston (Christian Bale). He is in charge of hunting down renegades in the “Nether” – areas outside of the city limits – that have stockpiled artifacts. If, and when, rebels, called “sensers,” resist arrest they are ruthlessly mowed down with machine guns. The cleric is also a master of a martial art that incorporates hand-to-hand combat with guns and swordplay. The choreography of these scenes is incredible. Hidden contraband is intuitively discovered by John and summarily destroyed with flamethrowers. Those who submit to arrest are first interrogated for information about the underground network of resistance, and then they are incinerated . . . much like being burned at the stake; but quicker. The red-hooded robes the “sensers” wear to their doom purposely bring to mind the witch trials Hollywood so loves to recall in the early days of the United States.

One day, the cleric intuitively discovers that his longtime assistant has stopped taking his Prozium. The man has been absconding into the Nether with contraband materials. John has to hunt him down. His assistant first reads him a poem from a book by Yeats (words that haunt John from that point on) – “But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.” Then he resists arrest, and John shoots him through his Yeats poetry book without blinking.

One morning the cleric, the highest authority responsible to keep all society in line, accidentally drops his vial of Prozium for the day. He must go to the “Equilibrium,” a huge governmental office building, to get a replacement. The building is closed due to some kind of disturbance, and he is redirected to another side of town. As he is leaving from his failed attempt to get another vial, John’s new partner (Taye Diggs), an intuitive like John (ambitious too), picks him up assuming everything is alright. John is immediately whisked away to work.

John finds that the acts that so came so easily to him yesterday don’t sit so well with him today. The raids and massacres turn his stomach, he allows a female resister to live under the false premise that he would interrogate her for leads to others (he was really having mercy on her), and he rescues a puppy from the slaughter of pet dogs at a kennel. After one raid, he discovers an old record player with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on it. When plays it, the experience is so powerful, he is so moved that he openly weeps.

He hides his unused Prozium each day and goes on more and more raids, with feelings. He begins to understand the plight of the “sensers.” The woman he allowed to live says something to the effect of, “Feeling is as vital as breath. Without the ability to experience love, anger and sorrow breath is just the clock ticking.”

When John finally connects with those of the resistance he has to make a choice: will he turn them all in, or will he help them destroy “Father” and set society free? In the meantime, will ambitious his new sidekick intuitively pick up on John’s feelings?

The story doesn’t just exalt human emotions as paramount. It makes a brief case for the virtue of self-discipline although it is only necessary while advancing the cause of the rebels.

There is dialog in the film that seems to challenge “blind faith” to a “Father” figure. John asks probing legal questions of his superior when he is told to do something that varies from protocol. He is reprimanded and told that his obedience to the “Father’s” will is more important than any questions he might have. “It is called ‘Faith,’” he is told, “Do you have it?”

Considering that the only religion most of us know of that refers to God as Father is Christianity, this may have been a message to those who are attempting to live in Christ’s way. Regrettably, many of us really don’t think for ourselves. However, Christianity, in its true form, doesn’t require us to blindly follow anyone. Our Father, in the Bible, says to come to Him so that we might reason together. You are free to search the Scriptures, seek wisdom from those around you who are following the way of Christ, pray and hear from God yourself . . . then to make your own decision based upon what you have discovered. The story doesn’t present a spiritual alternative to the worldly “Father” that oppresses the society in EQUILIBRIUM. It plainly prefers people free to enjoy their emotions, the artistry around them, with the ability to question authority.

The visual effects and violence in this film are so brilliantly stylized that the movie seems like another episode of THE MATRIX. While the violence is extreme there aren’t pools of blood. Instead, there are subtle, artsy blood spurts as bodies are riddled with bullets, run through with swords, and limbs are broken by karate moves resulting in compound fractures erupting through clothing.

The idea of one man seeing the light and saving the world from an evil oppressor is not new. It makes for a good story, but the extreme violence of “EQUILIBRIUM” disqualifies it from family fare.

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‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig' Review: Mohammad Rasoulof Emerges from Iran with a Shattering Domestic Thriller About Patriarchal Violence

"The Seed of the Sacred Fig" is an anguished cry from the heart of Mohammad Rasoulof , the Iranian filmmaker who just fled his home country for Europe after an eight-year prison sentence from the Islamic Republic. This is not the first brush with theocratic law for the dissident director, who's been working steadily out of Iran for two decades.

So while Iran will never, ever submit his deeply unsettling latest masterwork for the Best International Feature Oscar - often the only harbinger of anti-establishment Middle Eastern films making their way to the U.S. - this searing domestic thriller deserves the widest audience possible. With the brutal 2022 killing of Mahsa Amini by government hands as his launching point, Rasoulof crafts an extraordinarily gripping allegory about the corrupting costs of power and the suppression of women under a religious patriarchy that crushes the very people it claims to protect.

"Sacred Fig" arose out of Rasoulof's incarceration in 2022 - right on the cusp of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising Amini's death inspired - in Evin Prison in Tehran, where he was jailed for speaking out against the Iranian government. Rasoulof, also writing the screenplay and having shot this film entirely in secret and at risk of the cast's lives, begins this story with Iman (Misagh Zare, currently banned from leaving Iran). He's a father of three, deeply entrenched in his faith and loyalty to the government, as he's just been appointed to the very Revolutionary Court that most recently sentenced Rasoulof himself. His wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani, also banned from leaving Iran and herself jailed two years ago amid Women, Life, Freedom protests) is subservient to the letter. Iman's daughters, Rezvan and Sana (Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Maleki, respectively, and both actors Rasoulof deliberately cast as older than their characters for their own safety), are less bound to tradition and domestic equilibrium.

While "Sacred Fig" never explicitly names the young woman who dies, as shown in newscasts and across actual protest footage, she's a stand-in for Amini. Rezvan and Sana, who share a bunk bed in the family's cramped Tehran apartment, participate in the protests in their own way: by offering safe harbor to a classmate, Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi), who's been arrested. Najmeh, who is keen on keeping her presence in their home a secret from Iman on the eve of his promotion, tends to the girl's wounds after she's been brutally attacked by police in the chaos.

Rasoulof, working with cinematographer Pooyan Aghababaei to create the film's unfussy widescreen look, holds the camera close on Sadaf's mangled face, her left eye bruised and bloodied and swollen. This is Rasoulof showing us in visceral terms what likely happened to Amini herself, whose death authorities ascribed to a stroke while in hospital. The movie makes mention of this, too, and it's a pack of authoritarian-fed lies Najmeh is all too eager to believe.

Iman, meanwhile, is the target of protesters of his own after signing death indictments of supposed dissidents, as led by his Revolutionary Court employers. But pressures mount when his service gun goes missing. It's not in the nightstand, where Najmeh put it, nor in a pile of laundry, where Reza stashes it at one point. The gun's misplacement is punishable with up to at least three years in prison, and obviously puts Iman's Court appointment in jeopardy. This Rasoulof's gun, if you will - fired only once much later in the film - becomes a symbol of power pased from hand to hand, and a tool that lays bare the already long-seated discord beneath the surface of Iman's family. Its vanishing slowly starts to send the entire family off its axis. "Sorry I didn't wake up to prepare your breakfast," Najmeh says at one point. But their long-held customs were already coming loose anyway.

The gun's disappearance sends Iman into a paranoid panic, first forcing his daughters and wife into a harrowingly staged, blindfolded interrogation to suss out the culprit. And then worse. As "The Seed of the Sacred Fig," which enthralls you throughout its entire near-three-hour running time, unwinds, the movie descends deeper into domestic thriller terrain. Here, a family is pitted against their patriarch and each other as he unravels, Iman eventually taking them to his remote childhood home and going to extreme measures to make somebody, anybody, confess to stealing the gun. En route, their car is trailed by two protestors who are after Iman, and it's shocking the way Rasoulof careens as recklessly as that car is run off the road into showing how far Najmeh is willing to go to her abet her husband's rage.

Each of the performances here, understated and never melodramatic, is inherently brave for the way the actors risked their lives to participate in the film at all. A number of the cast and crew have been threatened by the Iranian government to pressure the Cannes Film Festival into dropping the movie, or else. There are other acts of bravery, like the way Rasoulof shows women indoors not wearing their veils, for once. Other, less politically resistant Iranian films often show women inside in hijab, which is highly unrealistic and likely a mode of appeasing censors.

Rasoulof emerged from prison wondering why he should make another movie at all when the odds are always stacked against him. In 2020, Iran banned him from attending the Berlinale premiere of his Golden Bear-winning "There Is No Evil." Similarly, he was invited to serve on the Cannes jury in 2023 but was also banned from participating. While in the Evin Prison, Rasoulof met a staff member with a pang of conscience over holding political prisoners but who lacked the courage to defy a job he hates. That signaled to Rasoulof that movements like Women, Life, Freedom have some chance at success against repression, and that the government will ultimately surrender to their demands.

Which makes "The Seed of the Sacred Fig," even as it ends in a shattering denouement where you know nothing good awaits anybody here after the last searing cut to black, an ultimately hopeful allegory despite its lack of resolution. Iran is never going to support this movie. It's up to the rest of the world to do so.

"The Seed of the Sacred Fig" premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Neon will release the film stateside later this year.

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