(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“Follows a struggling father who purchases a domestic SIM to help care for his house and family, unaware she will gain awareness and turn deadly.”
OK. Let’s get something out of the way right now.
To its detriment, Subservience tries to employ a metaphor throughout its rather dark exploration of human coexisting peacefully alongside artificial intelligence beings – called SIMs – by utilizing Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland as a thematic foundation. In fact, our lead synth is even named Alice (played by Megan Fox) by the family who purchases her, so it should go without saying that screenwriters Will Honley and April Maguire designed their story in the shadow of a fable that’s associated with such constructs as dreams versus reality, the loss of innocence, the nature of existence, and even the descent into madness. Clearly, Subservience’s Alice experiences a life that touches on a lot of these ideas; and yet this is far from a kid-friendly extrapolation of a somewhat impressionable young girl finding her way in a universe that defies the imagination.
In fact, the chief problem I kinda/sorta have with all of that intellectualism is that here Alice confesses to having made a conscious decision entirely on her own very early on in the film that triggers the very descent requiring her dissolution. She admits to wiping out her greatest safety protocols of her own free will when given a systems reboot by Nick (Michele Morrone) that she even surreptitiously led him to believe was going to grant him the desire for her to experience 1942’s Casablanca – one of the greatest films ever made – as if it were entirely brand new (and not a part of her programming). While this little vignette within the wider film certainly gets to the heart of how we come to know what we know (as well as how we process it), the reality remains that Alice was far from the pure and wholesome Alice of the Carroll novel, thus destroying the metaphor.
In the book, the young protagonist was on her own journey of discovery, one that challenged her to grow and/or adapt but still manages to return to her old self (with a bit of maturity gained) in the finish. In the movie, the adult Alice – while given a kinda/sorta wide-eyed propensity at embracing new events for learning (we’re told that her software allows her to always continue learning) – arguably begins on the path toward desolation entirely of her own free thinking and never matures. To tell the God’s awful truth, she only grows progressively worse the more data she accumulates.
OK. Glad I got that off my chest.
Still, Alice – as played by Fox – works fine throughout most of the drama here.
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“Follows a struggling father who purchases a domestic SIM to help care for his house and family, unaware she will gain awareness and turn deadly.”
OK. Let’s get something out of the way right now.
To its detriment, Subservience tries to employ a metaphor throughout its rather dark exploration of human coexisting peacefully alongside artificial intelligence beings – called SIMs – by utilizing Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland as a thematic foundation. In fact, our lead synth is even named Alice (played by Megan Fox) by the family who purchases her, so it should go without saying that screenwriters Will Honley and April Maguire designed their story in the shadow of a fable that’s associated with such constructs as dreams versus reality, the loss of innocence, the nature of existence, and even the descent into madness. Clearly, Subservience’s Alice experiences a life that touches on a lot of these ideas; and yet this is far from a kid-friendly extrapolation of a somewhat impressionable young girl finding her way in a universe that defies the imagination.
In fact, the chief problem I kinda/sorta have with all of that intellectualism is that here Alice confesses to having made a conscious decision entirely on her own very early on in the film that triggers the very descent requiring her dissolution. She admits to wiping out her greatest safety protocols of her own free will when given a systems reboot by Nick (Michele Morrone) that she even surreptitiously led him to believe was going to grant him the desire for her to experience 1942’s Casablanca – one of the greatest films ever made – as if it were entirely brand new (and not a part of her programming). While this little vignette within the wider film certainly gets to the heart of how we come to know what we know (as well as how we process it), the reality remains that Alice was far from the pure and wholesome Alice of the Carroll novel, thus destroying the metaphor.
In the book, the young protagonist was on her own journey of discovery, one that challenged her to grow and/or adapt but still manages to return to her old self (with a bit of maturity gained) in the finish. In the movie, the adult Alice – while given a kinda/sorta wide-eyed propensity at embracing new events for learning (we’re told that her software allows her to always continue learning) – arguably begins on the path toward desolation entirely of her own free thinking and never matures. To tell the God’s awful truth, she only grows progressively worse the more data she accumulates.
OK. Glad I got that off my chest.
Still, Alice – as played by Fox – works fine throughout most of the drama here.
It isn’t as if there is any great requirement to portraying a mostly emotionless automaton – some might even call it ‘genius casting’ though I’d never insult any actor or actress’ gifts so directly – but Fox maintains a limited range of affecting responses that hint toward how synthetic men and women have been portrayed from Blade Runner (1982) all the way up to AMC’s Humans (2015-2018). While there may not exactly be an innocence in any of it, there remains a plainness – almost an understated curiosity with the tilt of the head or the arch of an eyebrow – that conveys that those cerebral wheels are in motion. She even manages to ‘stick the landing’ when Alice reverts to almost pure evil in the second half, never quite divulging her motivations with the usual facial expressions reserved for villains.
There’s vastly more to the story here than just being a (lite) sexual thriller. Alice is purchased by Nick for the purposes of helping him to maintain the household while his wife Maggie (Madeline Zima) is hospitalized awaiting a heart transplant. As such, there’s a bit more dimension to the robot’s relationships, and we’re treated to scenes of her cleaning, cook, and child-rearing – an infant and the young Isla (Matilda Firth). Advertising and reviews might sidestep such domesticity in favor of promoting the film’s obviously more salacious storytelling, and there’s nothing wrong with that: my point in clarifying that there’s a bit more to the tale is only to present as fair and balanced a critique for the whole shebang … and not just the ‘banging’ itself, which does happen in Nick’s seminal moment of weakness. He’s human, after all, and he has needs. With her programming, Alice recognizes that and provides.
Also, Subservience does take a glimpse at just how far its fictional society has grown to embrace the use of these artificial people. We see them as doctors and nurses. We see them as construction workers and other support personnel. We see them serving us drinks and food and trying to assist in other small yet meaningful ways. There’s a brief exchange that suggests – for business purposes – that humans are still required to supervise the work being done by these creations, and Subservience surprisingly sidesteps any authentic dialogue about how a world that often abhors slavery has crafted an entire race of workers to do their bidding for a profit.
The downside here – again, so far as this critic is concerned – is that the material never quite differs in any profound way from what’s been tried and done before. As I mentioned above, Blade Runner’s crowning achievement in portraying replicants who’ve grown attached to this thing called life was never in any risk of being taken away by anything in here as the script really sticks pretty closely to marital fidelity far too much of the time, never even attempting to give Alice any dimension more complex than becoming the ultimate suitor. Humans took the better part of three seasons to eventually explore ideas of how synthetic people might ultimately strike out to find their own separate identities, but the various subplots did dabble with the conventional melodrama when it could be inserted into the wider premise. Russia’s Better Than Us (2018-2019) series is probably a stronger comparison to Subservience in that both female leads found a road to travel that required breaking the rules; the fact that the film gets there in vastly shorter time isn’t exactly a selling point, but it likely will appeal to those who prefer a bit of skin in their Science Fiction diet.
There’s vastly more to the story here than just being a (lite) sexual thriller. Alice is purchased by Nick for the purposes of helping him to maintain the household while his wife Maggie (Madeline Zima) is hospitalized awaiting a heart transplant. As such, there’s a bit more dimension to the robot’s relationships, and we’re treated to scenes of her cleaning, cook, and child-rearing – an infant and the young Isla (Matilda Firth). Advertising and reviews might sidestep such domesticity in favor of promoting the film’s obviously more salacious storytelling, and there’s nothing wrong with that: my point in clarifying that there’s a bit more to the tale is only to present as fair and balanced a critique for the whole shebang … and not just the ‘banging’ itself, which does happen in Nick’s seminal moment of weakness. He’s human, after all, and he has needs. With her programming, Alice recognizes that and provides.
Also, Subservience does take a glimpse at just how far its fictional society has grown to embrace the use of these artificial people. We see them as doctors and nurses. We see them as construction workers and other support personnel. We see them serving us drinks and food and trying to assist in other small yet meaningful ways. There’s a brief exchange that suggests – for business purposes – that humans are still required to supervise the work being done by these creations, and Subservience surprisingly sidesteps any authentic dialogue about how a world that often abhors slavery has crafted an entire race of workers to do their bidding for a profit.
The downside here – again, so far as this critic is concerned – is that the material never quite differs in any profound way from what’s been tried and done before. As I mentioned above, Blade Runner’s crowning achievement in portraying replicants who’ve grown attached to this thing called life was never in any risk of being taken away by anything in here as the script really sticks pretty closely to marital fidelity far too much of the time, never even attempting to give Alice any dimension more complex than becoming the ultimate suitor. Humans took the better part of three seasons to eventually explore ideas of how synthetic people might ultimately strike out to find their own separate identities, but the various subplots did dabble with the conventional melodrama when it could be inserted into the wider premise. Russia’s Better Than Us (2018-2019) series is probably a stronger comparison to Subservience in that both female leads found a road to travel that required breaking the rules; the fact that the film gets there in vastly shorter time isn’t exactly a selling point, but it likely will appeal to those who prefer a bit of skin in their Science Fiction diet.
Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say a word or two about Fox’s casting, what it means, and whether or not she achieves anything noteworthy here. As an actress, her career has often been shackled with discussions of her private life or what I think is safe to suggest a ‘limited range’ as a Thespian; while I’d never argue anything to the contrary with respect to her skills, I still believe she was acceptable in this capacity. As a sex symbol for the modern era, it’s understandable how corporations might capitalize on such an image, produce a fleet of bots to satisfy whatever personal or private needs, and bank a significant profit. Dismissing the irony that her professional career largely began in big screen robotics (2007’s Transformers) and knowing she’s kinda/sorta back in the same field, her work here remains understated, never resorting to anything big, brash, or bold and yet always sizzling with an understated sexuality.
Subservience (2024) was produced by Millennium Media. A quick search of Google.com indicates that the film is available for digital rental or purchase on a variety of platforms. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I thought that the provided sights and sounds were very good from start-to-finish: there is no major reliance on Special Effects, and I think that’s a benefit to keeping the tale focused on human behaviors instead of inhuman prosthetics. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? Alas, the disc I received included nada … a big miss as I definitely would’ve liked to know a bit more.
Recommended.
As a huge, huge, huge fan of intellectual properties that explore the complexity of creating lifelike synthetics and unleashing them upon society at large, I can assure that Subservience (2024) is far from the worst expose of coexistence but never quite approaches the best. Though I’ve read a bit of online commentary suggesting actress Fox stalls the film’s momentum, I never found that to be the case. In fact, I thought she stayed mostly true to how an artificial person might emote in limited and/or highly controlled fashion. Yes, she embraces the sexual component perhaps a bit too aggressively once the script reaches those rather obvious intonations, but this is Hollywood, after all, and it’s stuff like that which sells tickets, you know. That isn’t Fox’s fault. That’s on us all.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at XYZ Films provided me with a complimentary Blu-ray of Subservience (2024) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
Subservience (2024) was produced by Millennium Media. A quick search of Google.com indicates that the film is available for digital rental or purchase on a variety of platforms. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I thought that the provided sights and sounds were very good from start-to-finish: there is no major reliance on Special Effects, and I think that’s a benefit to keeping the tale focused on human behaviors instead of inhuman prosthetics. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? Alas, the disc I received included nada … a big miss as I definitely would’ve liked to know a bit more.
Recommended.
As a huge, huge, huge fan of intellectual properties that explore the complexity of creating lifelike synthetics and unleashing them upon society at large, I can assure that Subservience (2024) is far from the worst expose of coexistence but never quite approaches the best. Though I’ve read a bit of online commentary suggesting actress Fox stalls the film’s momentum, I never found that to be the case. In fact, I thought she stayed mostly true to how an artificial person might emote in limited and/or highly controlled fashion. Yes, she embraces the sexual component perhaps a bit too aggressively once the script reaches those rather obvious intonations, but this is Hollywood, after all, and it’s stuff like that which sells tickets, you know. That isn’t Fox’s fault. That’s on us all.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at XYZ Films provided me with a complimentary Blu-ray of Subservience (2024) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
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