Lucy

As wonderful as it is to see Scarlett Johansson's luscious tuchus in anything, Luc Besson’s Science Fiction Thriller “Lucy” has been heavily criticized as ridiculous pseudo-science wrapped around canyon-like plot gaps and strained logic.  If we are talking about the real world then yes.  All these criticisms are valid.  The idea that humans only use 10% of their brains is an urban myth, and Morgan Freeman’s explanatory lecture at the beginning of the film is a lame attempt to give that myth authenticity. 

In dream space, though, the movie makes complete sense.  The touchstone of the difference between real space and dream space is that in the real world you can’t do magic.  If you find yourself being able to fly or manipulate objects with your mind, you can be sure that you are in dream space.   The only thing that prevents people from doing God-like things in dream space is a lack of control.  That can come with control, practice, or in Lucy’s case, from consuming massive amounts of untested drugs. 
In dream space I have managed to do every phenomenal thing that Lucy winds up being able to do in her drugged dream.   My miracles and apotheosis are not nearly as violent as Lucy’s but it can be excused since her dream space was induced by violence and a very real death threat. 

 
Freeman’s nonsensical expositional lecture is exactly the kind of jumbled logic one finds in dreams.   Arguments like these, non-sequiturs wrapped around symbols instead of concrete concepts, make perfect sense while you are dreaming, but make you scratch your head and wonder “what the hell was I thinking?” when you awaken.

Lucy’s apotheosis revolves around a return to a primordial state.  As she becomes more god-like, she returns to confront the very first human.  She eventually witnesses the birth of the entire universe.  These scenes are dizzying and trance-like and exactly the sort of thing one experiences in the depth of profound meditation or in the throes of what Jung called an “Epic” dream, a dream so profound that it is life changing.  The feeling here is exactly the visceral feeling felt in the last ten minutes of the film 2001:A Space Odyssey.  That film, too, involved a primordial deification that transcended logic.  I had my first religious experience watching 2001.  The self-referential scene of the modern Lucy meeting the Australopithecine Lucy was just as dizzying and ineffable as Bowman’s final meeting with the black monolith.



The plot of Lucy therefore becomes: a woman is forced to act as a mule for untested drugs.  When the pouch carrying the drugs bursts and begins to empty the drugs into her system, she is thrown into a dream state in which she is able to control more and more of her reality.  As she slips ever closer to her overdose induced death, she experiences an apotheosis, resulting in her complete deification as she dies.