“How can we simplify your life?”
The future, full of domestic AI help from robots who are very lifelike, might sound like fun and full of convenience but - as envisioned by director S.K. Dale (Til Death) and cinematographer Daniel Lindholm - it’s also going to be a damned suspenseful journey as we weigh the consequences and limits of technology.
Robots, robots, robots. How many workers will be replaced by robotic units? How many houses will be full of AI servants who, upon entering the domestic setting of their owners, learn the patterns; the chaos; the struggles of the family they are owned by and then assist in navigating their individual needs in mitigating the established routines? There will be a great many as posed by screenwriters Will Honley and April Maguire . . .
. . . and some of these AI units will be more lifelike than unexpected, developing attachments to their owners and taking out all they perceive as a threat. And, if the families are chaotic enough, they too could be expendable.
It’s a twisted sense of loyalty and of service but it makes perfect sense to the domestic AI, eventually named Alice (Megan Fox, Transformers), which one father (Michele Morrone, The Next 365 Days) purchases for his family when his wife, Maggie (Madeline Zima, Twin Peaks - The Return) takes ill and he is left holding down the fort with two young kids. With his wife’s approval, he heads to the local AI service store and picks out a model (well, at least his child does) and becomes Alice’s primary user . . .
. . . but does he dare turn her on? 
Would you? The answer is, of course, yes and Fox (who has had her fair share of subpar performances in the past) is an absolute killer here delivering a performance which is both charming and deadly as Alice finds herself on the outside of the family, trying desperately to serve her owner’s needs.
Exploring some mature and tremendously dark themes as Alice learns more and more about how to best serve this family (especially when Maggie returns home from the hospital), Subservience, which also features solid performances from Matilda Firth and Andrew Whipp, is a very slick thriller which is constantly buoyed by its stellar cinematography, an electronic score from Jed Palmer, and sharp editing from Sean Lahiff as it develops a thoughtful and engrossing narrative which gets all the more perverse and twisted the further Alice explores and carries out her role in the family.
But the situation soon turns deadly when the lifelike robot develops an obsessive attachment to her new owner. Driven by a twisted sense of loyalty, she becomes determined to eliminate what she perceives as the true threat to his happiness: his family.
Subservience, which is much more than a domestic thriller, will be released on September 13th from Vertigo Releasing.
MPAA Rating: R.
Runtime: 95 mins
Director: S.K. Dale
Writer: Will Honley; April Maguire
Cast: Megan Fox; Michele Morrone; Madeline Zima
Genre: Sci-fi | Thriller
Tagline: Don't Turn Her On.
Memorable Movie Quote:
Distributor: Vertigo Releasing
Official Site:
Release Date: September 13, 2024
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: Follows a struggling father who purchases a domestic SIM to help care for his house and family, unaware she will gain awareness and turn deadly.
