A mostly scrambled jumble of tech and thrills
Another day, another tech-y thriller released that tries to mesh the personal with the technological. This time, it’s writer/director Kim Nguyen’s effort The Hummingbird Project; an admittedly intriguing affair which bumps and slogs most of the way through while telling a tale of the kind of unstoppable hunger driving the tech world in this current era. Despite some admirable efforts, the result is a mixed bag thanks to woeful casting choices, a lack of engagement with the people on the screen an “in your face” quality that rivals few other titles. Still, The Hummingbird Project possesses enough of the ingredients necessary to keep it from being totally dismissed. If only it had contained more of them.
In The Hummingbird Project, Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgard play Vincent and Anton, respectively; two cousins who work as day traders for a ruthless Wall Street tycoon named Eva Torres (Salma Hayek). Fed up with their limited roles working for Eva, and with dreams of making it big on their own, the two hatch a plan to leave the company and get the jump on the everyone in the field by planting a long stretch of fibre optic wire across the country with a speed capable of transporting valuable trading data ahead of the competition. However, personal and professional setbacks, as well as Eva’s relentless determination to stop them, stand in Vincent and Anton’s way.
The Hummingbird Project has themes and symbolism to spare for days; so much so that a drinking game could be made ever time a character has a moment of profound revelation. There’s the idea of technical drive and speed in relation to both the fibre optics and the characters’ own sense of prosperity at the forefront, while the ever-growing quest for power (both literal and figurative) flow among each of the three leads in their own way. The idea of reputation and legacy also make appearances in The Hummingbird Project as the need to make a name within the field becomes just as important to Vincent as it is to Eva, while a determination to leave a mark on the world unites the two showing how incredibly similar they actually are. Nguyen tries to simplify things in terms of all the tech mumbo jumbo, striking a decent balance between dense and accessible. In lesser films, such elements usually see their audiences checking out during such moments, but The Hummingbird Project actually uses its technological jargon to give the clearest sense of what a hungry world the characters belong to.
Because the film contains a myriad of themes flying every which way, problems with characterization become all but inevitable. No one is truly explored beyond costumes and mannerisms here. Even the majority of the personal human motifs feel more assigned to characters according to their analog rather than being natural and organic in their own right. Other times, andomness drives character action. It makes little sense as to why the ruthless Vincent would happily play with his nieces when everything about him suggests he doesn’t favor such interaction, or that the socially awkward Anton (whose asperger’s levels are through the roof) would do a celebratory dance down a hallway after achieving a technological breakthrough. Making matters all the more worse is the fact that the characters rarely interact with each other, which is a shame because when they do, the movie really comes alive. In lieu of character interaction, The Hummingbird Project relies too much on montages to move the story along, mainly due to the fact that it’s a smaller scale affair. It’s obvious to see what Nguyen and his crew were going for and what might have been achieved were this a movie from HBO or Annapurna.
It’s also difficult to say just how much an improvement The Hummingbird Project would have been had Eisenberg and Skarsgard switched roles. My guess is not a tremendous one, but it would have made the actors come off with a little more life than they do here. Eisenberg tries hard not to play a variation of his iconic Mark Zuckerberg performance, but Vincent’s hungry determination won’t let him. A third act twist allows him a bit of acting space, but can only do so much. Skarsgard meanwhile is totally miscast playing a character no one seems particularly interested in exploring, least of all the filmmakers. Even the brief glimpses into the idiosyncratic nature of the character are given the short end of the stick, totally abandoning and wasting the out-of-place actor. By contrast, Hayek enjoys one of her more intriguing roles to date, playing a ruthless and unflappable villain with a dry sense of humor, making it seem that the movie much more than it is.
It’s not that the themes of The Hummingbird Project aren’t on full display, it’s just no one seems to know just what to do with them exactly other than shove them down the audience’s throats. There’s a desire within Vincent to rise above from his humble beginnings and show everyone that’s he’s more than the world he comes from; a fight which could literally cost him his life. The old world versus new world motif is alive and well here as tradition battles progress in the most blatant way imaginable. You have to hand it to the minds behind The Hummingbird Project; as miscalculated as the film is, it still manages to be about something worthwhile. Yet even as the film hits us over the head with its thematic beats so strongly that we barely survive, nothing is done to disguise the fact that a movie about putting a long piece of wire underground is just not as sexy as it sounds.