Predestination is a 2014 Australian science fiction action-thriller film written and directed by Michael and Peter Spierig. The film stars Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, and Noah Taylor, and is based on the 1959 short story " '—All You Zombies—' " by Robert A. Heinlein.
Plot
In March 1975, an agent, while trying to stop a bombing in a public building in New York City, is caught in a gunfight. The bomb is not fully contained in time, causing severe burns to the agent. Someone unseen helps him grasp his time-travel device, which he uses to retreat to his employer's facility in 1992. The agent considers his mission a failure because the "Fizzle Bomber," the unidentified serial-bombing fugitive he confronted, remains uncaptured and will carry out his bombing on another day, ultimately killing over ten thousand people
The agent recovers from his injuries, but facial reconstruction surgery and vocal cord damage have altered his face and voice. His superiors force his imminent retirement due to the dangers of the extensive time travel undertaken over the course of his career. His doctor diagnoses him with symptoms of psychosis and depression but does not disclose this.
The agent is sent on his final mission. Working undercover in 1970 New York City as a bartender, he converses with a customer who writes true confession articles under the pen name "The Unmarried Mother". The reticent customer begins telling his own life story after much prompting.
Born female, the customer grew up as Jane in a Cleveland orphanage. Superior in intellect and physical strength but plain in appearance, Jane suffered as an unloved outcast and was never adopted. These qualities, however, led a man named Robertson to recruit her for SpaceCorp, a space flight organization seeking young women as R&R companions for male astronauts. During Jane's aptitude testing, a physical examination revealed an undiscovered, disqualifying medical condition. Keeping this a secret, Robertson rejected Jane under a pretense while promising to re-enlist her.
In 1963, Jane fell in love with a man by a chance encounter, briefly finding happiness before the man deserted her one day. Robertson finally revealed to Jane that SpaceCorp was a front to recruit elite operatives with no family ties for a secret government agency, but Jane became disqualified again due to being pregnant by her lover. While performing a Caesarean section, doctors discovered Jane was intersex. As a result of a forced hysterectomy due to birth complications, Jane underwent gender reassignment through a series of extensive surgeries. Amidst all this, her baby was abducted by an unidentified man. Resenting her lover for ruining her life, Jane adopted the name John and eventually relocated to New York City.
The agent offers John the chance to take revenge on his lover scot-free, in return for John taking over the agent's job. The agent time travels with John to Cleveland in 1963, admitting that he works for Robertson's secret agency, the Temporal Bureau, which uses time travel to prevent crimes. Following instructions for finding Jane in the past, John unwittingly falls in love with his younger self and realizes that the agent set him up to become Jane's lover. Despite knowing that their love is doomed, John cannot bring himself to break off their relationship.
Deviating from his mission, the agent illegally time travels to March 1975 to pursue the Fizzle Bomber once more. The Fizzle Bomber beats him in combat, leaving him to witness, and help, his earlier burned self. The agent expects to be punished by execution, but Robertson excuses him, dismissing the Bureau's protocols.
Continuing his mission, the agent brings Jane's baby, born from her self-fertilization by John, back in time to the Cleveland orphanage in 1945. Thus, Jane, John, and their baby are the same person, a predestination paradox.
The agent returns to 1963 and convinces John to leave Jane at the preordained time, inducting John into the Temporal Bureau in 1985 and completing his mission. Robertson extols the importance of John's future role at the Bureau as a unique operative with no ties to the past or future. The agent still regrets his failure to stop the Fizzle Bomber, but Robertson credits the Fizzle Bomber for motivating the Bureau's growth and success.