Out today on VOD from Vertigo Releasing
A father needing help buys a SIM to assist around the house and with the children while his wife if in the hospital. Soon, things take a dark turn when the beautiful android gains awareness.
Written by Will Honley and April Maguire and directed by S.K. Dale, Subservience is a decently entertaining scifi thriller while being quite predictable. Any fans of the genre will see the twists and turns come from a mile away, but that does not mean it isn’t entertaining. Here, the family unit is established early on and with the expected players: mom, dad, eldest child, and infant. They aren’t given much depth, but they seem to be a functioning family. And this is the main issue here. There are good ideas throughout, but most feel under-developed or left to marinate on their own. The characters all feel a bit flat in how they are written, and in some cases brought to the screen. The story has good ideas, but keeps it mostly minimal, meaning in this case that the developments are not pushed all that much. Yeah, there’s sex. Yeah, there’s violence. However, the story here has way more potential than what is being brought onto the screen, potential to make it more than what it is, potential to make have a much bigger impact than what it is now, an entertaining, yet mostly forgotten in a few days scifi thriller.
Here is the thing though, the cast does what they can with the characters they are given. All of them do all they can to gives those characters dimension and emotions, well except when emotion isn’t supposed to be a part of their character. Megan Fox is quite good here, giving robot/emotionless a look that is an artform almost. Yes, many will not like it, but it makes sense for the character that is not human. She’s the main attraction here and she takes the scenes she is in and make them hers. She gives her characters a few mannerisms that are on point. Playing the father, Michele Morrone mostly works out right, coming off just the right amount of, well, off. His performance has its sketchy moments, but this does feel like it adds to the character. Playing the mother, Madline Zima doesn’t get enough screen time, but she does do decent work of the scenes she gets. Playing the daughter, Matilda Firth is possibly the better actor of the bunch surprisingly. Her performance comes off more natural and gives the story more stakes. The rest of the cast does ok here, most of them giving performances that work for their scenes.
The film surrounding the story, direction, and acting does look really good. The cinematography by Daniel Lindholm looks slick, stylish, and just a touch futuristic. Same goes for the decor and wardrobe, which may be even more subtle in their futuristic looks, created a world that is not too far off, maybe even just a few years away, something that adds a lot to the thriller aspect, setting the story and film in familiar territory.
And that is something that serves the film well overall, helping move it from meh to more interesting. The tech shown, the decor work, the costumes, the makeup and hair (particularly for Megan Fox, giving her an almost doll-like look), the cinematography, the music, etc all help elevate the story beyond being a SyFy Original.