With his wife incapacitated by illness, a struggling father turns to a lifelike AI companion for help—only to find that his new assistant, equipped with self-awareness, desires everything her new family offers, including his affection. And she’s willing to kill to claim it.
Subservience starts off strongly enough as it dives into thought-provoking themes about human-robot relationships made all the more real with the recent introduction of Elon Musk’s new robot technology along with Google’s recent AI companion Gemini.
AI and robotics within films are slowly merging into reality and that’s a scary time for all of us as the unsettling encroachment of AI on traditional roles like parenting and labor. For about 45 minutes, it promises a nuanced exploration of these dynamics before descending into a predictable humanoid-robot-gone-rogue slasher.
It was doing oh so well until this shift in the narrative as the potential was there on full display with Megan Fox putting on a compelling performance despite being trapped within a static robot body for the majority of the film.
Sadly, by this latter point, the premise feels underdeveloped. Screenwriters Will Honley and April Maguire lean heavily on clichéd storytelling,
The story centres on Nick (Michele Morrone), a grieving husband juggling fatherhood and a demanding construction job after his wife Maggie (Madeline Zima, the only actor delivering a truly convincing performance) suffers a heart attack that lands her in the hospital indefinitely. Overwhelmed by responsibilities, Nick impulsively buys Alice, the most attractive AI model available, to help around the house. Predictably, this decision spirals into disaster.
He really should have read the manual, as clearly, the only reason he picked up his very own Megan Fox AI bot is because, well, it looks like Megan Fox.
Whilst Nick succumbs to Alice’s manipulative charm, there’s an internal struggle—he’s aware of the ethical quagmire but still falters, driven by stress, loneliness, and uncertainty about his wife’s survival.
This slow rise in her authoritativeness around the house is quite a joy to behold as the tension does build rather nicely as a result as Nick slowly but surely starts enjoying her around and thus lowering his defences.
Subservience squanders its promising setup by veering into formulaic territory, abandoning its early focus on character dynamics for uninspired slasher tropes.
In the end, the film becomes a forgettable exercise in missed opportunities, weighed down by uneven performances and lacklustre execution. It’s a shame because with some fine tweaking the film could have been as excellently executed as T.I.M, which I had the joy of watching last year. That kept the tension up throughout and didn’t borderline on the silly it was thought-provoking and very cleverly done perfectly executing its script as well as T.I.M would execute, well, everyone else.
Subservience gets off to a great start but sadly this is one particular AI film that should have been powered down before it even began, there’s many an update to do here and clearly, the script wasn’t beta-tested enough to create anything of note worth watching after its opening impressive introduction.
Our Rating
Summary
A great start but sadly this is one particular AI film that should have been powered down before it even began, there’s many an update to do here and clearly the script wasn’t beta tested enough to create anything of note worth watching after its opening impressive introduction.
