Splice: Bringing Elsa & Clive To The Big Screen
Having made the decision to keep their star specimen alive, Clive and Elsa must now simultaneously observe and nurture her development while keeping her existence hidden.
It’s a fine line they’re trying to walk, and an equally fine line for Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley to give these characters their due complexity with a measure of sympathy.
Screenwriter Doug Taylor, who, with Antoinette Terry Bryant, collaborated on the Splice script with Natali, admits, "Clive and Elsa do some reprehensible things, take gambles they shouldn’t take and behave abominably sometimes. But Sarah and Adrien are able to make even those behaviors seem understandable. Or at least forgivable."
For Brody, it seems a matter of Clive’s talent and passion surpassing his maturity. "Clive is a genius, very successful in his field, and clearly that aspect of his life came easily. He loves his work. He believes in the power of science and is excited about its possibilities.
"He and Elsa are young, successful and adventurous. They receive a lot of praise and enjoy a lot of freedom and, theoretically, it’s a positive thing they’re working toward. But sometimes with that enthusiasm comes carelessness.
"He ends up in a situation that throws his life into a tailspin because, despite his and Elsa’s intelligence, they’re unprepared for a lot of things in life," Brody continues. "They get carried away."
Though similar in many ways, the two researchers harbor fundamental differences that become apparent as events escalate. Elsa drives Clive to places he likely would not go on his own.
At the same time, says Polley, "It’s unlikely that Elsa could be with anyone who wasn’t totally immersed in that world. She and Clive urge each other forward; they feed off each other, both making the other more passionate about what they do.
"Elsa is extremely ambitious and focused, yet there is much in her past that she has not dealt with, that’s ruling her. She’s a fireball of life and energy but she pushes things to their final conclusion whether or not they are good for her or for anyone else."
Part of what motivates Elsa is the memory of a harrowing childhood, which comes dramatically into play when her maternal instincts are aroused, then rejected, by Dren.
"Dren is as much a child to Clive and Elsa as she is an experiment, and when she evolves into adulthood, that relationship becomes even more complicated," says Natali.
"Her most human characteristics are her vulnerability and desire for companionship, but also her frustration at not getting what she wants," screenwriter Antoinette Terry Bryant acknowledges.
"This leads to rebelliousness as Dren grows into adolescence. Unfortunately, at each ‘acting out’ stage of her development, her animal DNA introduces a physical component more powerful than that of her creators who soon learn that the more you push the envelope, the more you need to watch your back."
Adds del Toro, "They don’t just create a monster by using DNA in an inappropriate way. They create a monster because Elsa, in particular, cannot overcome her own demons and passes them onto the ‘child.’
"We not only see their anxieties and ambivalence in becoming parents, but it’s also compressed in time so that things happen in hours or days that would normally take decades. Adrien and Sarah do a tremendous job in finding emotional truth in characters that are going through such rapid transformations."
"Sarah is heartbreaking and terrifying as Elsa, and Adrien’s performance is fantastic. He’s believable, he’s magnetic and you care about him," says Hoban.
To research their roles, the actors devoured stacks of information and logged shifts in the Centre for Cancer Genetics, Bapat Lab, at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, observing work on human cells by geneticist George S. Charames, a technical consultant on the film.
Recalling their first rehearsals, Natali says, "Adrien and Sarah really got the material, so much so that it was Adrien who came up with that fateful line of dialogue that reflects some of the story’s dark humor: ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’"
Splice is released 23rd July.