From Chris Snellgrove
| Published
The emergence of AI in the form of programs such as ChatGPT and Dall-E 2 has sparked intense speculation about the role of this technology and how it can both improve and disrupt our daily lives. It’s a debate that continues to rage in Hollywood, as many of the evil robot movies of yesteryear are being replaced by new films about new types of dangers (like the new Mission Impossible films, whose big bad is disembodied AI). If you want a film that wraps the fears of yesterday and today into an elegant and sexy vision of tomorrow, then it’s time for you to watch it Submissiveness on Netflix.
The act of submissiveness
Submissiveness is a film about a construction foreman whose wife’s illness forces her to buy a lifelike android to help around the house. Unfortunately, the robot develops feelings for its human master and it looks like it feels the same way. However, when the robot decides to go full Single Byte Female and attempt to kill the man’s wife, the flesh-and-blood pair must team up in a fight for their own survival… a fight that may turn into a fight about the soul of humanity.
The cast of Submissiveness is very small and features Italian actor Michele Morrone as the man who buys a bot to help his wife (Madeline Zima, known for roles in ” The nanny And California) gets sick. The rest of the cast includes Matilda Firth, Andrew Whipp and Jude Allen Greenstein. But the real star of the show is Megan Fox, whose experience embodies both sensuality and horror in films like… Jennifer’s body helps her bring to life a sexy robot that simply won’t be controlled by her own programming.
It’s not M3GAN and that’s okay
Submissiveness didn’t really have much of a box office haul since it was initially released digitally, although it did gross a paltry $246,010 in a brief theatrical release that included places like Russia and Lithuania. On digital, the film stunned critics and is currently at 52 percent Rotten tomatoes. In general, critics complained that the film was predictable, and some compared the film negatively to more imaginative killer AI fare such as: M3GAN.
So I can hear you cranking up your keyboards now and asking me the big question: Why the hell am I recommending you watch a direct-to-streaming video that critics hated the most? For one thing, Megan Fox is the perfect character of the robot that threatens to tear this family’s life apart because he is anything but a robot. In fact, it is her misguided passion that causes all of these problems in the first place, and the subtext that it is actually her humanity that makes her so inhumane to the world is disturbing in its dark depths.
Plus, Submissiveness succeeds well in metaphorically dramatizing the different public reactions to the invention of AI. The film makes it clear that our male lead is worried about how the arrival of perfectly human replicas will affect his work in construction and his work in general. Of course, that doesn’t stop him from fooling around with his own robot, and his character ultimately gets to the heart of both our fascination with and fear of this new technology.
Ultimately, your success may vary, but I liked the film’s clear thesis that the road to the AI apocalypse is paved with good intentions. Our main character has good reasons for buying a robot helper in the first place, and even his weak moment with her is expressed as him wanting to relieve his stress so he can provide for his family and co-workers. Still, it quickly becomes clear that AI is destructive, no matter how well-intentioned its users are, and that’s a message that, frankly, more people could use hearing.
You will find Submissiveness a moving meditation on the dangers of AI, or do you turn it off to watch? M3GAN again? You won’t know until you keep streaming it Netflix and decide for yourself. After this, you may never look at KI – or Megan Fox – the same way again.
