How can a director explore ethical considerations of murder, spiritual complications of immortality, altruistic treatment of non-human life, and duplication of identity in under 140 minutes? How can an opening scene spark profound compassion, sadness, and understanding of humanity? Bong Joon Ho, writer and director of “Mickey 17,” flawlessly achieves this feat. In a futuristic world where humans travel through space to Planet Niflheim, we follow Mickey Barnes (Robert Patterson), a human “expendable” whose body can be duplicated by a “human printer.” His past memories, as well as the new, are retained in a machine and uploaded into his new body. Because his life is regenerative, he handles highly dangerous and experimental procedures. The film highlights the seventeenth duplicate, Mickey 17, as his assumed death creates Mickey 18. The simultaneous existence of the two duplicates exposes the true nature of identity and the corruption of worshipped leader Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo).
Joon Ho, writer and director of “Parasite,” features Patterson in the impossible roles of the bubbly, naive Mickey 17, and the angry, pessimistic Mickey 18. From body language to voice control, Patterson fully becomes his character, prompting us to set aside our associations with his celebrity image. Patterson based his portrait of the characters on Ren and Stimpy, the classic Nickelodeon series about a cat and dog who embark on unusual journeys. He states in an article with Yahoo! that he wanted a cartoon-like performance. Initially more extreme, Patterson’s acting slowly “dies down.”
The drastic personality split between the two Mickeys raises questions of identity. Each time doctors “resurrect” Mickey, the new versions have varying personalities. The narrator. Mickey 17, describes Mickey 3, for example, as clingy, Mickey 5 as indecisive, and Mickey 8 as annoying and stupid. An interesting theory relates the change in their disposition as a direct result of their death. As Mickey repeatedly dies, each new incarnation triggers a distinct trauma response, which is reflected in the traits of the revived character. Just as a person changes after a traumatic event, Mickey transforms following each horrific death.
Timo (Steven Yeun), too lazy to save Mickey 17 as they were going to “reprint [him] back out tomorrow anyway,” causes Mickey 17’s presumed death. This betrayal may explain the pessimism and anger that controls Mickey 18’s aggressive, defeated character. Mickey 17 and 18 have both lived through the same events, with their lives separated by only two hours. Could the assumed notion that a trusted friend gave no value to your life change your personality that much? Obviously yes, this is exactly what happened. Likely, the Mickeys’ personalities are a direct result of chemical reactions, memories, and dominating beliefs. With multiple versions of ourselves coexisting in the mind, even a slight change in perception for one trait can dominate the other. Sometimes, when we act irrationally, we reason in the back of our minds. In effect, our conscience is the devil and angel on our shoulders. This film suggests how conflicts between different personalities ultimately merge to form one identity. Perhaps, Mickey 17 and 18 are the same because they were the same at some point. It’s plain to see that Mickey 17 has 18 inside of him, and vice versa.
In Mickey 17’s final moments of extreme chaos and pain, he reveals the blame he carries for his mother’s death, stating that “my entire life is a goddamn punishment.” Mickey 18 replies, “[the] accident was caused by a car defect … how many times I gotta tell you?” Previously, they never discussed this, at least not as the separate entities of Mickey 17 and 18, but this exchange reveals a continuous argument. Familiar conversations and understanding between 17 and 18 come from the fact that they share the same memories and used to occupy the same body. Mickey 18 didn’t materialize out of thin air; he is 17. They are one person, one soul, split between two bodies. The other versions of Mickey, from the original to the 18th version, all live inside the last Mickey standing. Regardless of any label or number, they all share the name – Mickey Barnes.
