I Am Mother's Chronicle: Netflix Confronting Humans Against Robots

If you've seen a sci-fi movie in your time on planet earth, you can probably guess where I am a mother, The new science fiction thriller of Netflix, goes away.

Directed by Grant Sputore, the film begins in a restocking center following an extinction event. A robot, called Mother (physically interpreted by Luke Hawker and voiced by Rose Byrne), begins the process of restocking, raising a girl that she simply calls Daughter (Clara Rugaard). Blindly trusting her guardian, Daughter never questions Mother's claim that the outside world remains too toxic, hence their confinement in an underground facility. This unconditional belief, however, falters when a seriously injured alien (Hilary Swank) arrives at the gates of the bunker.

[[[[Ed. Note: this review contains sweet spoilers for the film]

I am a mother is working on a plan that many movies featuring robots or dramas with unique decor have already. This is the "robots with feelings" aspect of I robot crossed with the confined nature of 10 Cloverfield Lane – it is just below one or the other.

As long as the film's reach (from a script written by Michael Lloyd Green) remains small, I am a mother maintains a tension that should keep even the most skeptical viewer hooked to the procedure. Instead of conveying Daughter's emerging doubt and hostility from abroad through jump fears and blunt action sequences, a slow and restricted implosion makes the process unsettling. In addition, Mother's specific motivations may be questioned, but it remains difficult throughout the film to question her dedication to Daughter.

As I am a mother Spread out over a territory loaded with twists, everything immediately begins to feel looser and harder to handle. While the film continues to find ways to freshen up its relatively familiar story, there are so many activities happening in its second half that, by necessity, it passes quickly through them. The little details – the girl's fascination with Johnny Carson, the childish stickers laid on the mother by the teenage daughter – are the most striking parts of the film, and the film loses its momentum by leaving it behind.

Although there is little need to deplore it now, I am a mother feels like the kind of story that would have been better served as a television series. To a certain extent, the film takes advantage of Sputore's own hand, because nothing is over-explained and some intrigues remain relatively mysterious. On the other hand, the twists that lead to the end (and seem to suggest the possibility of a continuation, or at least a more granular explanation of Mother's governance mission) are too broad to escape this relatively passive approach.

Sputore's leadership is strong every time he is trapped in suffocating spaces. In a sequence that sees Daughter run through the bunker, Sputore takes advantage of the similarity of the passages of the installation to give the impression of continuing to move, even when the shots succeed between Dauphin and the previous girl who rushes into the corridor. His daughter knows this bunker as his pocket. Filming creates a sense of disorientation as her previous faith in Mother is questioned.

The special effects of the film are also better when they are contained. Mother, thanks to a practical robot combination built by Weta, is still quite believable (mother-daughter interactions are homogeneous), but as the girl's horizon widens, so does her environment. , metaphorically and literally.

The three representations prevent the film from being short-circuited. Where Byrne is responsible for serenity, able to detect changes in Daughter's pulse and peaks of nerve exhaustion and anxiety, Swank's performance is at the opposite extreme. She is unpredictable and disordered when the institution and her mother are sterile. Rugaard is caught between them, raised to be perfect by Mother but nevertheless human.

I am a mother do not stick the landing, but it's still impressive. The themes – humanity causing its own end, coexistence between artificial intelligence and living and breathing people, post-apocalyptic bunker drama – are old, but the execution feels fresh by focusing on its characters and the way in which their individual twitches shape situations. Like the robot at its center, I am a mother is a lean, average machine.