With her one-woman show ofPicture of Dorian Graygoing to Broadway andMemoir of a Snailin theaters, it’s safe to say thatSarah Snookhas found a flourishing career post-Succession. Managing to move past television immortality as one of the key characters in one of the most zeitgeist-intense shows in recent history is no small feat, but it shouldn’t be surprising that Snook can redefine herself so easily. From as early as her first prominent film role, where she played the unnamed protagonist of the supremely underrated pulpyB-grade thriller,Predestination, Snook showed herself to have a sharp command of physical prowess in portraying a lost soul desperate to reclaim their identity. It’s shocking to think how much time passed between this film andSuccession’s debut, as it’s immediately apparent how much screen presence she has when standing toe-to-toe with a veteran likeEthan Hawke.
What Is ‘Predestination’ About?
The Barkeep (Hawke) sits in his bar, waiting for a very important person to show up. He isn’t actually a barkeep, but a “temporal agent,“a hitmanwho travels through time to take out domestic threats across history.He’s been forced into retirement after botching his previous assignment of stopping a serial bomber, and so he waits in the bar for something to happen. Unexpectedly, a young writer calling himself “the Unmarried Mother” (Snook) walks in, seemingly wanting to be unbothered, yet our Barkeep is so bored he’d rather talk with this mysterious man. The man ultimately relents, and tells the Barkeep the tragic and confounding tale of his own history, one that consigned the man to a life of permanent disappointment, raging grief, and abject rage at the hand life dealt him. The film may have been marketed off the back of Hawke’s presence as the brooding action hero, butit’s Snook’s performance as the Mother who dominates the core part of the film’s story. With a film this packed with time travel shenanigans, it needs an emotional anchor to guide the audience through the chaos, and Snook provides that anchor flawlessly.
Sarah Snook’s Performance in ‘Predestination’ Cuts Across the Gender Spectrum
Part of the punch of her performance comes from how it’s essentially two performances for one character, as it’s revealed that this man used to be a practically different person.The traveling author was once a young woman named Jane, full of promise — after overcoming a childhood of rejection and isolation — to be a candidate fora major space program. However, she’s rejected for an undisclosed reason, which leads to her instead going to college, where she meets a tall, dark, and handsome man of mystery. The two had a swift romance, before he disappears, leaving Jane knocked up and alone, deeply heartbroken. When her baby is delivered via C-section, the doctors discover she’s intersex and that she has to have a hysterectomy, which leads to her undergoing full gender reassignment surgery and changing her name to John. In addition to this, the baby that John gave birth to got stolen and nobody knows who did it. Can’t exactly blame John for choosing to lead a life of anger and despair, writing personal confessionals under his sardonic pseudonym for a mild pittance.
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It must be stated that this entire plotline has aged poorlyand comes off as transphobic, as it’s only interested in the Mother’s identity and obvious trauma as puzzle pieces to the larger narrative. Furthermore, the character arc winds up reinforcing the gender binary normative standard, as Snook’s aesthetic swings from one extreme of 1960s feminine prim-and-proper chic to a haggardly masculine barfly. Any actual insight or empathy intothe experience of having a trans identitycomes solely from Snook’s performance. That said, it’s remarkable how much Snook sells the diametrically opposed visuals and how they correlate to the Mother’s current state of identity. She’s equally comfortable in both modes, and she keeps intact the core traits of reserved intelligence, watchful eyes, and a quickness to internalize pain that she must protect. Despite the convincing shift to a masculine voice and a more haunted visage, we can still see the same eyes and resting countenance from before in Snook’s face, and that makes the eventual reveal feel less like a cruel gotcha than it would have in lesser hands.
Sarah Snook Has Great Chemistry With Ethan Hawke and… Herself
Smartly, the film’s directors,the Spierig Brothers, simultaneously prove Snook’s credentials and make the wild swing of a premise more believable by constantly pairing her with other high-caliber actors in scenes that are constructed to give them space to spar. Most notably, she shares many one-on-one scenes with Ethan Hawke, with him as her willingly captive audience, and what’s interesting is how they actually complement each other very well. Rather than be antagonistic or attempt to blow each other off the screen,Snook and Hawke adopt a similar temperament of quiet intensity, though Hawke’s is more insistently friendly, while Snook’s is more hesitant and suspicious. Being framed as the trusted veteran, Hawke finding the Mother so interesting makes us want to know why they’re so interesting, and Snook’s wall of professed disinterest getting chipped down makes us anticipate what the Mother’s story actually is. Under this enigmatic guise, Snook has the allure of aclassic noir protagonist, complete with a fetching trenchcoat and a jaded demeanor that hints at a tragic backstory, and Snook’s initial recalcitrance leads to a greater appreciation for the Mother confiding their story to the Barkeep. It helps that Hawke’s acting style is a natural fit for noir, and their spiky chemistry makes their scenes crackle.
If it wasn’t already a sweet deal that Snook got to share scenes with Ethan Hawke,she even got to share scenes with the best actor in the film… herself!The Barkeep proposes using his time travel connections to let John get revenge on the man who ruined his life, and so the two of them time-travel back to Jane’scollege days. When John shadows Jane, on the lookout for the man, he accidentally bumps into Jane and is forced to talk with her.Even though he immediately knows this is a younger him, he finds himself falling in love with her, and eventually sleeping with her, in which case…uh-oh. If there’s any reason to seePredestination, it’s to witness the intensely stomach-churning yet somehow sweet sight of two Sarah Snooks engage in a romance thatwould make Loki blush. Not only is it kind of wild to watch a scenario like this be played totally straight, butit’s a fantastic flex of Snook’s range that she can have you believe these are two different peoplewhose life experiences are colliding together when they’re really the same person. As if we needed any more proof that the woman who brought Shiv Roy to life was always built different.
Predestination
Predestination follows a Temporal Agent tasked with preventing crimes through time travel. On his final mission, he must capture a elusive criminal mastermind and avert a catastrophic attack. As he navigates complex timelines, the agent confronts profound questions about identity and fate in his relentless pursuit.
Predestinationis currently available to rent or buy on Prime Video in the U.S.
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