((EXTREMELY Long character analysis ahead. Vary Possible tw)) [I'm sorry in advance] {approximated timestamps imcluded}
OK the title is a lie. I actually think about this once every 2 weeks. [If that]
It's about in time. Specifically Raymond Leon. He's the main antagonist of the movie But no one focuses on how tragic he really is.
Let me explain
1. Timekeeper Raymond Leon. Like everyone he stops aging at 25, And his clock starts leaving him a year to live. Cannon to the film he mentions that hes been doing his job for 50 years. He's pushing 80 years old if we track it properly. 80 years!! Of age... (01:27:15)
2. Most if not every time we see Leon, He's always chewing on a piece of gum. And it said that gum is a way to pass time.
3. During an exchange with Mr. Weis Towards the end of the movie. The man worth eons, sitting behind a desk in front of Leon, asks how many years he wants wants for his services. And ray, with a dead straight face, looks at the man and says.
"there aren't enough years, not even in your lifetime. Mr. Weis." (01:09:10)
4a. And that brings me to Layla. His little Dayton Mistress If you will.
All that Being said... Putting the pieces of his deeper puzzle together, Raymond Leon is much more tragic than he seems on the surface. Because from the outside the viewer is made to detest him as an antagonist of the film. And they follow.
But Leon as a deeper character. if you dig into what he says, and his actions, his little ticks and motions. you can see how done he is with his own existence. But he can't time himself out, That's just asinine for a man of his standing.
4b. She offers him 10 minutes for an hour of his time, The time that he has left and let's dwindle to the last second, habitually. He advises her to
"get out of the game" (00:22:26)
Because she's
"pushing 60."
Ray comes from Dayton, He managed to cross time zones and escape the habits of the lower class. That's how he knows all of wills tricks.
Meaning she's wasting her years on a job that will get her nowhere.
"He's conscious of the security he doesn't have a body guard and he runs" (00:29:18)
Leon has been there and done that. He escaped for a better life. But only ended up in a job that gets him nowhere. Working it for 50 years and finding no fulfillment.
He doesn't concern himself with the Justice that his role demands. He only concerns himself with the time that he usually measures.
"Seconds minutes hours." (00:41:35)
He has lost confidence in what he does because of what hes been through and what he's had to do and sacrifice.
In pursuit of what he does for a living, He will let his time dwindle to the last Seconds if it means getting the job completed, keeping up that front and not letting any one see what he actually thinks.
Chewing gum to pass the time, Remarking that a man worth eons (!) doesn't have the years that Leon would need for his services. Draining his clock to his last hours just to see how far he can push it.
The lowest in the movie we see his clock get is 2 hours. And even with the other time keepers concerns, His only remark is-
"I'm still walking around." (00:50:47)
Dismissing that he's putting himself in danger.
And his dismissal of his needs is what brings him to his ultimate demise. 5 seconds left on his clock he watches it fade, Standing in front of the 2 people he had his heart set on stopping, Confessing that he can't turn back the clock, And to a certain point he wishes that he could. And he keeps the time because that's what he knows, He knows his job, he knows the rules. But it's not what he wants, It was never what he wanted.
"I keep time" (1:37:53)
he says.
Time keepers are only given A day. Every day as a top up of their time. Imagine taking A day every day for 50 years in a job that gets you nowhere and gives you nothing. (00:50:47)
He is practically invisible, A man in a coat. Defined by what he works for and not seen for who he is. Not seen for the story that he could tell. The lives he could save and the lives he could change.
Leon is a story in and of himself, He is a story of an old soul in a young body, he is a story of the day to day monotney, And he's a story of what people would do to stay alive in this world.
Being a timekeeper is the equivalent of being a cop, The Dayton people don't respect him, And No one in new Greenwich seems to acknowledge his existence.
Because of who he is and what he "stands for" no one would give him a chance. 50 years of only being seen as a one sided story. He's grown tired of it all. Stuck in a dead and job with no way to pass his own time. Except simple pleasures, intense euphoria, and a soul breaking livelihood.
He doesn't want to stand for what that coat stands for anymore. He wants his own life but he can't have it, It is stuck in the confines unable to reach higher.
He left the low and climbed the ladder. But got stuck in the pursuit of his own future, Tying himself up in a spot that he thought would make him happy.
He lived by-
"Follow the time" (0:22:26)
But he followed the time so far the bread crumbs turned to pebbles, and he lost his way.
Time is money, Time is life, But time can also be the enemy.
Seriously BAFTAs you FINALLY nominate Cillian Murphy for his incredible performance and he crawls out from under his rock to attend the ceremony in his slutty little suit only for you to NOT GIVE HIM THE AWARD?? UNJUST
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