The 14,000 Year Old Man

I watched an intriguing movie last night -- Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth. Bixby, who died last year before the film was released, was a known writer for episodes of Star Trek and the Twilight Zone. Although the subject matter of this film is a departure from this type of work, it still has that similar feel to it.

David Lee Smith (who plays Calleigh Duquesne's IAB boyfriend on "CSI:Miami") plays John Oldman, a professor at the local college.  The entire film takes place the afternoon of his impromptu "going away party" when he announces that, after ten years at the college, he'll simply be "moving on."  He's packing everything from his house into his truck and isn't telling anyone where he's going. His colleagues, concerned about him and the mystery of his departure, come on over to talk with him.

And then he lets them in on a shocking secret that they discuss for the duration of the movie: He grew up as a latter paleolithic cro-magnon man. He stopped aging at around age 35, and has been alive for the 14,000 years since then. He leaves his job and his friends every ten years or so when they start to notice that he doesn't age.

And everyone reacts. Some with fervent belief, some as skeptics. All of them trying to poke holes into and substantiate his story from biological, anthropological, Biblical and psychological points of view. But he seems to have an answer for every one of them.

And that's it. No action scenes (aside from a minor scuffle), no sex scenes, no changes of location. Just tenured professors (and one undergrad who allegedly is boning her professor with whom she arrived).  Some of them are downright annoying. (Example: John Billingsley plays Harry, the biology professor. He's the actor who played Dr. Phlox on Enterprise. As well as many other nerdy characters with annoyingly nasal voices. But he plays this part extremely well.) Richard Riehle (the old guy from "Office Space" who gets laid off, hit by a drunk driver, and invents the "Jump to Conclusions Mat") plays Dr. Will Gruber, a psychologist who can't decide between believing Dr. Oldman's story or committing him for further observation.

Every question is asked and receives a relatively good answer: Have you ever been sick? Are there any others out there like you? When did you come to America? How do you know that you were in what is now France thousands of years ago? What were you doing in 1292 AD? Did you know any figures from the Bible? 

And the way it ends will set your heart a poundin'.

Great movie. I give it 54 out of 57 stars.