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| Saturday, September 26, 2009 10:43 PM |
| On the Viewer - Surrogates |
 by Fëanor |
I took poppy to see this movie for her birthday. Hey, it was her choice, I swear! It's about a future wherein a technology has been developed that allows you to lie in bed at home and jack yourself into a younger, prettier - but otherwise extremely realistic - robot duplicate of yourself and send that robot out to live your life for you. The robot is called a surrogate. If your surrogate (or "surrey") is hurt or even destroyed, you won't feel it, and you'll remain safe and uninjured at home. The surrogate technology has become so popular that no one goes outside anymore. This has led to incredible decreases in murder, disease, and even discrimination (which seems a bit unlikely, but okay). So, everything's cool and all is well with the world, right? Well, no, not quite. In fact, there are groups of people living in reservations all across the United States who hate the entire concept of surrogacy and do not allow surrogates in their territory. And now, for the first time in a long time, two people have actually been murdered - and somehow they were killed by a weapon that was fired at their surrogates, which should be impossible. The very existence of such a weapon could bring civilization to its knees.
FBI agent Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) and his partner Jennifer Peters (Radha Mitchell) quickly discover that the case has connections to the disgraced inventor of surrogacy, Dr. Canter (James Cromwell); his former company, and current producer of surrogates, VSI; and the leader of the anti-surrogacy movement, The Prophet (Ving Rhames). The investigation will force Greer to confront his already mixed feelings about surrogacy, as well as his distant, strained relationship with his wife, and his grief over the recent accidental death of their child.
There are details about the film's world that aren't entirely believable (how could everyone even afford to have a robot double? And would surrogates really have had such a huge effect on how many people are murdered? Wouldn't it be easier to murder someone if you knew they were going to be at home and practically unconscious pretty much all the time?), but in general it feels realistic, or at the very least, interesting enough to suspend your disbelief and accept it as a premise. And once you have accepted the premise, the film does some interesting things with it. I liked the landlady who was shuffling around in an ugly, clumsy loner surrey because hers was in the shop. I liked that the thin, sexy, female surrogate turned out to be owned by an ugly fat guy (it's just like the internet!). I liked the telling differences, both in appearance and behavior, between Greer's surrogate and his actual self. His surrogate is like a young, blonder, Ken doll version of him, not capable of the same emotional range as a real person. When he pushes his real "meat-bag" of a body - grizzled, bald, creaky, and graying - out of his apartment for the first time in years, he walks around hunched and tense, afraid of the crowds and the open spaces, flinching away from the surrogates which, when they merely brush his shoulder, cause him to cry out. When his partner takes him into a store to buy a cheap, temporary surrogate, the salesman tries to sell him a cheap, generic model out of a box. When Greer says he feels numb, the salesman tells him this model only has sight and hearing; if you want any other senses, you have to pay extra.
Willis is excellent in the role of Greer, and the subplot about his lost son is handled in a rather subtle and understated manner that I really appreciate. The film never goes into great detail about it, because detail isn't necessary. This film is also a logical next step for Willis - it seems like in every movie he's in, his character gets the crap beat out of him to more and more of an extreme, and this time, thanks to the fact that he's actually a robot, they get to take things to a whole new level, not only beating him to hell, but also blowing him up, tearing his limbs off, hitting him with a car, shooting him repeatedly, and crucifying him.
But the film isn't all action and violence. It's also quite thought-provoking, asking interesting questions about selfhood and identity, reality and humanity, technology and philosophy. What Greer discovers is that there are two sets of villains at work, each embodying two extreme viewpoints, and each fighting to the death with the other. In the end, in one of the film's more powerful and interesting scenes, Greer is given a terrible, world-changing choice, and his finger hovers over the button in a lengthy and fascinating moment of tense indecision. Just before the chance to decide is taken away from him, he makes his choice. Humanity will have to live with the consequences.
Maybe the film simplifies things a bit by working in extremes and on such a large scale, but sometimes that's the most effective way to get your point across. Surrogates isn't a perfect movie, but it's exciting, intelligent, moving, satisfying, old school science fiction, and it's quite well done. |
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