A Viewer’s Review of . . .
I believe I first saw the cover art for S1m0ne, I was just eleven years old. The cover intrigued me, not just because of the "replace by numbers" title, but since it appeared to be about some kind of living computer program. I'm glad I never watched it as a kid, because there's no artificial intelligence to be found here, so I would have been disappointed that there were no "living" computer program; however, that same curiosity stuck with me, and now having seen the film as an adult, I am even more disappointed that this film seems entirely pointless.
The film isn't about artificial intelligence, so much as virtual actors, which is to say, when an actor doesn't really exist, but rather is created entirely with computer graphics. Now, whilst eleven-year-old me would find that boring as hell, in and of itself, that is an interesting idea for a movie. Technically, this is science-fiction, but, we're actually dealing with this kind of thing in real life since we have made leaps and bounds in the field of creating fake actors. We have computer-animated Pixar movies galore, we have motion capture and we have even replaced actors with CG renderings (such as in the Terminator and Star Wars films) when actors were too expensive, unavailable or, well dead to return for their roles. This has has some interesting potential consequences since it can call into question the value of any flesh-and-blood actors, and pop culture. What is the value of a person's image if it can be recreated in a computer? Also, what kind of effect does this have on culture, if we can create art using people that don't exist? Not to mention, if you can create a person perfectly within a computer, then they could be completely flawless, and what effect can that have on the self-image of the viewing public?
These questions (as well as many I haven’t thought of) are all interesting ideas related to virtual actors, and this film chooses to explore precisely none of them. So, what is this film even about? Well, it's a satire about how society is obsessed with the private lives of celebrities . . . and, uh, well, I think there's some stuff in there about art and the integrity of the artist, but it felt hollow to me.
Now, I am going to be fair and set aside the fact that I feel this is a complete waste of the virtual actor concept. Whilst I don't see why you need science-fiction for this, that's just my opinion, and maybe it was integral to the writer's vision. However, the satire in this film doesn't really have anything to say. Sure, there are a solid ten minutes of this film that I thought were perfectly done, wherein the paparazzi and tabloid journalists are driving themselves nuts trying to intrude upon the life of a non-existent person. That's pretty funny, and it says something about how determined we are to invade people's privacy that we start going a bit loopy when a person doesn't "have" a privacy to invade. But, that's ten minutes of something worth seeing, but this film has a 113 minute runtime. What does it do with the rest of its time?
Well, basically, mild comedy and pseudo-philosophy. There's joke setups around how a grown, middle-aged man is trying to pretend that a fake woman exists, by creating fake phone calls, using body doubles, and at one point even sits a mannequin in a moving car. This is all just silly, and whilst it could have added flavour or breathing room to a film with some substance, instead it just makes the film feel like all it has to offer is silly comedy bits. As for the pseudo-philosophy, sometimes Viktor Taransky, the director character has a conversation with the virtual actress of Simone. Remember, there's no A.I. in this film, so when Simone speaks, she is just parroting exactly what the director tells her to say. This means that when Viktor talks to her, he alternates between speaking to her, and then speaking for her into the microphone, with realtime voice modulation. It was interesting at first, and I thought maybe, it was a commentary on how a director wishes they could be as visible as their actors. But then I realized, you can be the director and actor in a film, so, what's stopping him from acting in his own movies? The film doesn't bother to explain why he's doing this, whether it's out of loneliness or it's just a common part of his creative process, whether it's meant to represent his inner voice, some kind of personal muse . . . at the end of the day, it's just a contrived way of making the character talk.
In fact, a lot of this film is contrived. The program comes out of nowhere at the precise moment when she can save the director's career, which also happens to be the precise moment that the inventor of the program is dying from an eye tumour that he got from staring at a computer screen whilst coding said program for so long, I think he said it was related to “magnets”, but I can’t even be bothered to learn why that’s wrong. Also, although there are abundant clues that the actress doesn't exist, since she's never seen in public, refuses to act alongside her co-workers, has no past, has no acting qualifications and has neither pay nor expenses, and despite the film’s satire revolving around our supposed "obsession" with celebrity to the point that every tabloid is trying to "dig up dirt" on this person, they somehow manage to discover several secrets about her finances, phone calls and “personal life” except for the fact that she doesn’t exist, and this is all based on the contrived notion that a virtual actress is entirely possible to be created and perfected by a single programmer without any sponsorships or investors, yet nobody even once considers that the impossibly perfect actress might be one.
Now, don't get me wrong, all of these complaints are entirely based on the themes and the plot of this story. The director character is played by Al Pacino, and he does a great job of presenting this struggling artist. Rachel Roberts also portrays the virtual actress of Simone . . . that alone is almost more fascinating than the film - a real actress playing the role of a fake actress - but genuinely, she does a fantastic job of portraying the ethereal, flawless and publicly beloved computer program. These two are the main characters, and they perform their roles as best they can, and the rest of the cast provides a fair job. This is perfectly competent as a movie, but the problem is that this is incompetent as a story. Not only are the contrivances and the plot holes both numerous and obvious, but as I said in the beginning, this film doesn’t seem to have a reason to exist. The only possible reason to have made this movie is because someone thought the idea of virtual actors was "cool" and so made up a contrived excuse to write about it.
Sure, there's the "satire", but at the end of the day, all this film is really saying with its satire is: "Wow, we really do obsess over celebrities, don't we?" Well, yeah . . . yeah, we do, so what? What do you have to say about that? What grand thesis can we discern from this fact? Why spend all that money to spread this message in your movie?! The closest we get to an answer to these pressing questions isn't so much a closing statement, as a repeat of the opening statement. Yeah, you're right movie. . . we DO have a facile obsession with celebrity, but perhaps it's because in the 90s our science-fiction films were so dull that we were reading tabloids just to read a story that had a point.
Now, I feel the need to justify my score in saying that this isn't just opinion. It’s a factor, sure, but in my opinion this film is worth "2.0/10", since the story sucked, and the film had no real discernible point, so I absolutely hated it. However, this is made competently, and although it doesn't explore these ideas to any significant degree, someone else might enjoy the ideas onscreen or laugh at the comedy enough to justify watching this. Personally, I paid $2 to buy this DVD from a thrift shop, and I feel like that's all it was ever worth.
Sure, be Fake or Real, just don't be Dull . . . - 5.0 ⁄₁₀
