Labbe-Minority Report

Minority Report (2002), directed by Steven Spielberg, is set in Washington D.C in 2054. Scott Frank wrote the screenplay based on Philip K. Dick's novella. Dick questions humanity and reality throughout his works. Minority Report investigates these themes by the unfair treatment of precogs, who are beings with the ability to foresee crimes.


In the film, three precogs, Agatha (Samantha Morton), Arthur (Michael Dickman) and Dashiel (Matthew Dickman), reside together under the PreCrime unit's constant watch. The officers learn the names of future victim's and criminals as well as the time and date of future crimes. Precrime arrives at the scene before violence ensues, haloing the perpetrators, leaving them incapacitated. Then, the criminals are taken into custody and locked up.



Dr. Iris Hineman (Lois Smith), whose research laid the groundwork for the program says Agatha is the strongest precog. Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise) finds out PreCrime director Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow) killed Agatha's mother, Anne Lively. "You created a world without crime. All you had to do was kill someone," Anderton says to Burgess.



Lively wanted her daughter back. Burgess wanted the distraction out of the way. He knew there would be no PreCrime without Agatha, and his program would be a failure. He had no problem locking Agatha (and the other precogs) up and using her as a tool. He had no problem killing Agatha's mother because he didn't see Agatha as human.



In the article, "Minority Report: Narrative, Images, and Dead Women," Joanne Clarke Dillman says, "Agatha's trauma is the loss of her mother, Anne Lively;Anderton's is the loss of his son, Sean."



Anderton is decidedly human. His loss parallels with Agath's loss, putting them on the same human level. "Agatha reaches out to Anderton," Dillman says. The audience is led to side with Agatha's human qualities, showing Burgess' crime to be unjust.



"The movement of the film takes Agatha and Anderton from the position of melancholy to that of mourning, to a sense of wholeness where both move on." Their stories continue to move on the same level to the film's end. Anderton reunites with his ex-wife, Lara, and the precogs are allowed to live in an undisclosed location in peace.





This clip shows Anderton and Agatha's close relationship.