December 2021 brought Mother/Android, a new Artificial Intelligence thriller film to our small screens. Written and directed by Mattson Tomlin in his feature directional debut, starring Chloe Grace Moretz (Carrie) as Georgia and Algee Smith (Euphoria) as Sam.
** The following content contains spoilers for the opening, however, most of the plot is left ambiguous **
We start with our protagonist, Georgia burning pictures before a flashback. Georgia is pregnant. Her boyfriend, Sam, proposes, but Georgia opts to forget about it for the evening as they are heading to a Christmas party.
As they prepare to leave, the film introduces the first Android, Eli, who helps with the coats. Eli pleasantly wishes them Happy Halloween, though the house is strung with Christmas decorations. That is around the only dramatic foreshadowing we get in the opening, as this lightning speed build-up gives way to the inciting incident.
Sam and Georgia reach the party, an advert plays ‘Since 1969, Raster Robotics has delivered cutting-edge AI’ as an Android delivers a hot chocolate.
We hear a high-pitched screech, which seems to make electronics glitch, then screaming as Androids begin trying to bludgeon the houseguests to death. Thus begins our journey into Android x Human warfare. In a twist of events that would leave my technophobe mother skipping for joy, most of the teenagers at the party have their heads blown four feet into the air as their mobiles explode. Luckily, Georgia was forgetful enough to leave her phone at home, or this would have made for a short watch.
This rollercoaster concludes our opening.
Some initial thoughts at this point, that was fast! Neither of the main characters seems particularly likeable, and shock of shocks, this is a warfare story based on robots retaliating against their creators. It feels overdone, and shouldn’t we be pushing for some originality at this point? Nevertheless, though this story has been told before, it is interesting to see different ideas.
The story cuts to months later, with Georgia heavily pregnant, she and Sam are living in a tent in the forest, with hopes of getting to Boston, where supposedly there is a safe zone. Their long-term plan is to find a boat sailing to Asia, as apparently, they are taking in new mothers and babies.
I will leave most of the film undisclosed for those who wish to watch it for themselves, but it does feature a dramatic twist, as Georgia and Sam become involved with the androids.
I can feel the director leaning into these two different ideas in the film. It would have felt more cohesive to have Georgia and Sam’s lives play out, now dependent on themselves, alongside the androids but not directly fighting them. Or a more focused approach to exploring the androids, showing us more about their world. Instead, what is left is a mostly survivalist story; that morphs into an action/thriller.
I did enjoy sections of the film; there was a twist, though easy to see coming when thinking critically. It isn’t the kind of film I would naturally gravitate towards, but Algee Smith and Chloe Grace Moretz displayed some heartfelt acting and had believable chemistry.
In all honesty, I think this film answers the question: what would happen if we crammed a bunch of genre devices into one film and set it in the middle of a forest. The answer? Nothing life-changing.
It lacked thrills; the problems were produced and resolved so fast it gave me motion sickness. I found that it explored what others had explored before with less depth, and its message was that people have a reliance on technology. While thinking so black and white, we probably do. But heading into the future with the kind of advancements we are making, the only way for humanity to grow and thrive is through technology. Robots allow people to go where they haven’t before. The recurring question asked is, what happens if these robots become sentient? But robots are programmed, not born.
I think this film perpetrates insecurities surrounding artificial intelligence, that they will cause an uprising and destroy humanity. A lack of any development in the ideas of the androids left me feeling unsatisfied.
Why are they doing this?
Who is behind it?
What caused the technology to fail?
All in all, it was a decent watch, but I had been hoping for more.
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