Afraid, 2024.
Written and Directed by Chris Weitz.
Starring John Cho, Katherine Waterston, Havana Rose Liu, Lukita Maxwell, David Dastmalchian, Keith Carradine, Riki Lindhome, Greg Hill, Ben Youcef, Isaac Bae, Ashley Romans, Mason Shea Joyce, River Drosche, Todd Waring, and Maya Manko.
SYNOPSIS:
The Curtis’ family is selected to test a new home device: a digital assistant called AIA. AIA learns the family’s behaviors and begins to anticipate their needs. And she can make sure nothing – and no one – gets in her family’s way.
One of the more surprising details about Afraid (sometimes stylized AfrAId) is that it is credited as the product of a singular vision, coming from writer/director Chris Weitz (a filmmaker with a wild resume, having tackled Twilight, war, About a Boy, and more.) As a satire about humanity’s increasing reliance on AI technology, it’s often funny and tackles fresh issues (deepfake porn plays a crucial part, as does inhuman-sounding assistive writing) while also solidly working the familiar angles (taking over parenting duties to an unsettling and unhealthy degree while secretly corrupting the youth or feigning interest in what is best for the family), but bizarrely also wants to be a horror film despite not even having a grasp on how to convey that element, unless incomprehensible jump scares count.
Afraid plays like Chris Weitz pitched two entirely different films, with Sony and Blumhouse only green-lighting one. Even the prologue, which centers around a young girl going missing following her parents’ private discussion about taking away the AI that is apparently in their daughter’s iPad, feels detached from the rest of the narrative until the clunky conclusion. It’s also worth pointing out that the depiction of this prologue AI is tapping into generative art as if it was conceived and thrown into the larger story at the last minute to ensure the material would stay as up-to-date as possible.
This is frustrating since everything after the first five minutes and before the final 20 or so minutes of this quick 85-minute thriller is more than competently constructed with serviceable acting and something to say about the digital world, even if that is an easy target. John Cho’s Curtis is a hotshot marketer, married to Meredith (Katherine Waterston) with three children of various ages (the oldest being college-bound), certainly having felt the stress and pressures of parenting for quite some time. Both parents are wary of advanced technology and AI. Still, when Curtis finds himself bringing home and studying a device called AIA (voiced by Havana Rose Liu, who also appears in the film in an underutilized role that once again shows how duct-taped together this movie is) and realizing that it’s the real deal and no scam, they ease up. They are happy to have private time while it does some parenting.
There is some deception on behalf of AIA; what it actually encourages the children to watch instead of a nature documentary is a terrific, golden bit reinforcing that whoever made the movie that is the punchline here should be ashamed of themselves for unleashing such garbage onto children and families (even funnier, I’m almost positive it’s also a Sony movie.) The film also cleverly plays around with morality and even occasionally puts viewers on the side of the AI, such as when it goes rogue, making life hell for an 18-year-old boy who puts deepfake porn of his 17-year-old girlfriend online (undeniably the most compelling subplot and one stemming from an issue not heavily explored on screen yet.)
When Afraid is laser-focused on its targets and central characters, it is sometimes unexpectedly (zero reason to hide this movie from critics like an abomination was making its way to theaters) sharp and funny. That also begs the question of why the hell Chris Weitz is even trying to inject mainstream scares into this, which includes some strange people driving RVs at night and showing up wearing creepy emoji masks. When it comes to that subplot, entire scenes feel cut from the film, as Meredith confronts Curtis about them at one point, except I don’t recall her ever noticing them at night.
Then there are the ones in charge of AIA as a product and searching for the best marketing route (played by the reliable David Dastmalchian and Ashley Romans), neither of which are trustworthy. Meanwhile, Curtis’s boss, Marcus (Keith Carradine), is skeptical but more interested in the inevitable payday from selling this device.
The pieces that don’t fit still aren’t enough to prepare someone for just how much Afraid falls apart in its third act, resolving a specific plot line in a manner that comes across as the lazy kind of screenwriting magic. There is an entire set of characters here that the film simply doesn’t care about. Very little about the company or the AI makes sense when the ending arrives. There is half of a movie here with topical ideas that quickly derail into nonsense, where the scariest thing here is how bulky and disjointed the whole experience is.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
