Source Code is about a Navy SEAL named Claude who gets handed a classified mission: a Syrian terrorist cell is planning an attack on the White House that very night, during the Correspondents' Dinner. The only way to stop it is to locate Victoria, an undercover operative who's also the mistress of a Middle Eastern prince. She'll be at the gala. Claude has to find her, get the intel, and shut the plot down. The terrorists are hunting Victoria too.
Problem is, Claude's informant is dead, so he has zero idea what Victoria looks like or what name she's using tonight. He's looking for a ghost in a ballroom full of masks.
Every time he gets close (following scraps of clues, narrowing the circle), the mysterious woman dies in some horrible way before he can even see her face. Car bomb, sniper, shoved off a balcony. And every single time he fails, he snaps awake back at the moment he first got the assignment.
Loop after loop after loop.
Eventually he figures out the only way to save Victoria (and the White House) is to take her place and die instead. So he lures the killers onto himself, takes the bullets… and the lead terrorist rips off his mask.
It's Claude's own face staring back at him.
He thinks he's finally dead.
Then his eyes open again.
He's surrounded by doctors.
Turns out the whole thing was a dream he couldn't wake from. Victoria was his little sister. He'd sent her in undercover; she got killed, and the guilt broke him. The agency decided to keep their elite soldier, so they tried an experimental lobotomy. It failed. He went comatose and got trapped inside the fantasy his mind built to protect itself.
The "twin" killer? A second personality the doctors planted to murder the original one inside the dream, so the real Claude could finally wake up.
Joey was the first director ever to marry infinite-loop storytelling with hard sci-fi, but she knew it would work.
The first few days on set were just the opening ballroom sequence, and Joey was an absolute perfectionist about every frame, every light, every color.
Meg Ryan teased her more than once: "Joey, are you secretly shooting a musical? You're treating color like it's the star of the movie."
Joey just grinned. "I really love Golden Age Hollywood, what can I say."
Then she'd sprint back to the monitors.
"Okay, that last take needs a long, unbroken tracking shot—follow Claude walking and talking. But the texture still isn't rich enough… Here's what we'll do: diamond-pattern the extras and set dressing between the actor and the camera. It'll make the frame feel alive every second he moves."
She waved at the second unit. "Right after that we punch in hard—sell how overwhelming and festive the room is."
She flipped open the script and pointed at Cooper and the background actress. "You two drift toward the lens while you talk, so we catch those little glances between you."
Everyone nodded. Roll cameras.
Cooper, in a sharp tux, steps into the dance floor. The lens pulls wide—Technicolor chaos swirling around him.
Cut to an over-the-shoulder push-in: pure confusion in his eyes.
Meg sweeps in through a side door in a lemon-yellow gown, literally brushing past him as they move in opposite directions.
Cooper slips into the power room, dodges a technician, jams the blackout chip into the panel. Before he can flip the switch, Meg glides past the open door, glances in—just a flicker—and keeps walking.
Cooper freezes. Cold sweat. The audience feels it too. The guy's a pro; every micro-reaction is perfect.
Meg, meanwhile, is still America's Sweetheart for a reason. One look over her shoulder and the whole room temperature goes up ten degrees.
Later, the scene where she eavesdrops on the prince:
First she's all soft Arabic and sugar with him. He brushes her off—"Wait outside, I have a guest."
She glides out, closes the door… then immediately hikes her gown, knots it, pops the window, free-climbs the outside wall like it's nothing, slaps a bug on the glass. Zero to stone-cold spy in two seconds flat. No overacting—just lethal efficiency.
Still, Joey being Joey, she yelled cut.
"Meg, this isn't an Oscar reel. You're playing it too restrained, too 'actorly.' I want you to sprinkle some holy-water-level camp on it. Let loose."
Meg laughed. "Sorry, I'll dial it up."
"Don't go full scenery-chewing," Joey added with a grin. "We're not trying to out-Streep Meryl here."
A few more takes with Cooper.
"Coop, your shocked face was half-baked that time."
He rubbed the back of his neck (nobody loves getting notes from a director ten years younger). "Got it. One more?"
Joey suddenly pointed at the floor. "Hey, what's that on the ground?"
Cooper instinctively looked down—wide eyes, total deer-in-headlights.
Snap! Joey clapped. "That. That exact face. That's the real, oh-shit moment we need. Remember that feeling."
Cooper laughed, shook his head, instantly in love with how fast she could pull the performance out of him. She didn't just demand; she tricked you into brilliance.
Then she turned to the DP like a general.
"This sequence is all color montage. Cross-cut saturated hues, smash past/present/future/hallucination together until time feels broken. That's how we get emotional whiplash. Camera 3 and 4, stay on my hip."
She spun to the AD: "Anna, there are two boom mics in frame over there—my eyes are bleeding. Clean it up!"
By the end of day one she was wiped, stretching like a cat. "That's a wrap for today, guys. I've got a laundry list of stuff to overthink tonight."
All in all? Smooth sailing.
Of course nothing stays quiet when Sumner Redstone is your grandfather.
The old man found out Hughes had thrown twenty million of his own money at Joey's sci-fi movie. He was livid—he'd explicitly threatened to boot Hughes from Paramount if he ever got near "that girl" again.
Grace paced the foyer like a caged tiger while Hughes was locked in the study with Grandpa. No yelling (Sumner didn't need volume to scare people), just oppressive silence. That somehow made it worse.
The door finally opened. Hughes strolled out looking annoyingly relaxed.
Grace pounced. "Well? Is he furious?"
Hughes smirked. "I told him it's a business decision."
"And?"
"And he said if I'm so sure it'll make money, I have to deliver six times the budget at the box office, or I'm out on my ass."
Grace gasped. "Six times? That's black-horse-of-the-year territory!"
Hughes just shrugged, fearless. "Juno did it. Source Code will too."
He walked out before she could scream.
Shooting continued in Romania like clockwork. Two months, more than halfway done.
The cast were all Method types who got better every week, so the number of blown takes kept dropping.
Even stuck overseas, Joey stayed glued to U.S. box-office news:
Tom Cruise's Collateral just dropped—she was dying to fly home and see her forever-crush on the big screen again (even if she'd watched it a hundred times in her past life).
Mean Girls 2 was cleaning up.
Who was cheating on who, who won what award—normal Hollywood gossip.
But on set? Laser-focused.
The only real enemy was the budget.
She had to make $60,000 worth of footage look like $6 million, and $20 million feel like $120 million.
Her solution? One explosion. Total.
It's a time-loop movie—she could reuse that single explosion across every loop with slight tweaks in post.
Every "wake-up" location, every repeated hallway—milk it for all it's worth.
Cast full of hungry unknowns + Meg Ryan literally working for free + every tax rebate known to man.
Hard sci-fi on a shoestring? Done.
Compared to the usual CGI orgies, Source Code looked downright minimalist. And that was the point.
Two months later: principal photography wrapped.
Cast and crew had one last drunken dinner, hugs all around, then scattered. The movie now belonged to post-production.
Sci-fi meant real VFX houses—she couldn't edit this one in her bedroom. She'd advise, but the wizards would handle the heavy lifting.
The night before everyone flew home, Meg showed up at Joey's hotel room with a bottle of red.
"Hey, kitty cat. One last drink?"
Joey squealed and dragged her in.
Meg poured two glasses, flopped on the couch, and ruffled her famous curls. "I cannot wait to see the final cut. You're about to make every hater in this town eat their words."
Joey raised her glass high. "Damn right. We're gonna prove you don't need half a billion dollars and ILM to make a badass sci-fi flick."
Meg's eyes softened. "So… you and Hughes. What's the real story now?"
"Nothing. Clean break. Strictly business."
Meg gave a slow, knowing "Ooooh."
"Seriously," Joey laughed. "Ancient history."
"But you two still get along so well after a breakup. That's rare."
"There's nothing to get along about. We're done."
Meg tilted her head. "You sure he feels the same? Hughes doesn't start something unless he plans to finish it… and he doesn't walk away lightly either."
"He walked," Joey said flatly. End of discussion.
She knew Hughes better than anyone. When he committed, it was for keeps. When he decided it was over, it was over forever.
This polite, professional vibe they had now? Perfect.
Meg let it drop, they gossiped about the movie a bit longer, then she left.
Next morning the circus flew back to L.A.
For the next seven months Joey basically lived at the VFX house, bouncing between home and the edit bay.
Hughes checked in every few weeks; she gave him honest updates.
Yeah, a lot of the "effects" were practical, reused footage, and clever makeup, but it didn't look cheap. It looked… elegant.
Seven months later: picture lock.
She burned the final cut onto a disc, drove to Hughes's office, and handed it over like it was nitroglycerin.
Inside, she was a nervous wreck, even if she'd faked confidence the whole time.
Hughes looked way too calm, like he already knew it was a masterpiece.
Joey lingered by the door. "I'm gonna wait outside. Too chicken to watch you watch it."
He raised an eyebrow. "You're really gonna leave me alone with your baby?"
She winked, already backing out. "Yell when it's over. And be honest!"
The door clicked shut behind her.