The new sci-fi thriller "Code 46" takes audiences to a bleak time in the not-too-distant future, when the world is divided between barren wastelands and high-tech cities.

Oscar-winner Tim Robbins plays an insurance investigator in this forbidding new world where access to the cities is tightly controlled. Probing a counterfeit case, Robbins’ character doesn't get his man -- instead he meets a mysterious and alluring woman, played by Oscar nominee Samantha Morton.

At a screening in Venice, Italy, Tim and his sexy on-screen love interest Samantha, emphasized that the film is not pure science fiction. "I’d say it's a romance," said Tim. "A romance set in the future."

Off screen Tim has a famously happy long-term relationship with Susan Sarandon, but in "Code 46," his one-night stand is a dangerous liaison. Tim’s character is married, but can't control his obsession with Samantha’s magnetic stranger.

But this is no ordinary love story -- the romance is forbidden because of the characters' DNA. But Tim says, "You don’t have to understand genetics to understand the movie. You just have to understand what it is to fall in love."

Unravel the mysteries of "Code 46" when the futuristic thriller hits theaters Friday.