Assessing the allure of the semi-sci-fi Afraid is a challenge: partly horror film and partly cautionary tale, it doesn’t scare nor does it properly attend to the philosophical danger artificial intelligence brought from the get-go. It is a summer diversion
Where Afraid is afraid to go is into the underpinnings of our fear of losing control to technology. Writer/director Chris Weitz, in the Rod Serling tradition, picks something we already live with, tech, and shows its monstrous implications. Yet, in this bloodless and vacuous screenplay, nothing more horrible initially happens other than dad Curtis (John Cho) and mom Meredith (Katherin Waterston) are perplexed by the in-home trial of a super-like Amazon Alexa, who helps entomologist mom attend to her busy family and write her dissertation.
The more skeptical Curtis, a marketer charged to test the tech marvel, becomes quickly skeptical when he watches AIA and her conspiratorial developers slowly develop the family in ways that look strangely cult-like. Yet, the most consequential family disruption comes from the outside, in the form of a classmate’s deep-fake porno about their daughter Iris (A promising Lukita Maxwell) sent to the all-damaging Internet.
The monster in that case is the smart phone distribution, and our real monster AIA, solves the problem with hints of more encompassing tragedy in that solution. Hence, the ambivalent monster, as if Mike Myers or Freddy Kruger had a secret happy family.
Never fully resolving the criminal porn issue (since she’s not yet 18), nor other raw topics like automated cars and distracted-drivers on their phones, Afraid is afraid to tackle the ominous challenges like AIA writing school assignments or making bad judgments like rewarding little ones for doing tasks all humans must tackle on their own (going to bed responsibly, for example). The flaw is that the film doesn’t explore the many topics in any full way; heck, even The Twilight Zone’s Serling makes a point to clarify the point of his morality tale.
Afraid is light summer fare, not 2001: A Space Odyssey but more Her. A better choice than that artificial adventure, Badlands, but then, few good choices at the end of summer. Afraid will at least get you thinking about the potential of modern technology to alter life.
Afraid
Director: Chris Weitz (The Twilight Saga: New Moon)
Screenplay: Weitz
Cast: John Cho (Searching), Katherine Waterston (Inherent Vice)
Rating: PG 13
Length: 1h 25m
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take (recently listed by Feedspot as two of the ten best NPR Movie Podcasts) out of WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, Ohio. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com