Chameleonic director Michael Winterbottom’s new film Code 46 is set in a high-tech, remote near future not unlike a global police state, where governmental fear of incestuous reproduction—or Code 46 violation—is scrutinized by an ever-watching, Orwellian international establishment.

When an American investigator (Tim Robbins) using an "empathy virus" ventures to Shanghai to investigate a security breach inside a large corporation—one of its employees is creating and distributing "papelles," which amount to travel visas to enter or leave the country—he quickly sizes up the culprit (Samantha Morton). Instead of turning her in, he’s immediately taken with her. They have a brief but emotional love affair that lasts only 24 hours—the expiration period for his papelles—before he returns to the States to his wife and son. Unable to shake the young woman’s memory, he returns to Shanghai to discover that her memory has been erased. They’ve had a Code 46 violation, you see, and when they meet again, for her, it’s the first time.

Code 46, for all its sophisticated, downplayed technology, is really a love story about memory loss—or erasure, to be accurate—that plays with the same sort of melancholy as this year’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It doesn’t approach that film’s poignancy, though there’s a decided emotional kick in their love scenes that gives the film its potent urgency.

The marketing campaign is pushing Code 46 as some sort of mystery thriller about "crime solving," however, there’s no mystery here as to why Winterbottom deliberately backseats those elements of the story in favor of a dreamy mood piece that bears a striking physical resemblance to sci-fi classics like BladeRunner and more contemporary gems like Gattaca.

Code 46, with its deliberate pace, hushed silences and subtle love story, will obviously disappoint anyone looking for a futuristic action picture or in-depth investigative procedural. But what’s so effective about the film is its ability to wring depth and feeling from its minimally written relationship. Much of the credit goes to the two actors, particularly Morton, who seems to be doing an earthy variation on her Minority Report character laced with some of the emotion she brought to last year’s family saga In America. There’s some surprisingly frank sexuality in the film as well, and real passion between the mismatched, genetically challenged lovers.

The final shot is poetic and wrenching. Code 46 is one of the most unexpected and affecting love stories this year.