I'm sure that we could all use a little extra help in our lives, another person who can give us a hand with the laundry, can pick up the toys scattered around the house, and get the kids off to school on time. People have had a complex relationship with 'the help' across history, with many cultures, if not all of them, using humans as slaves at one time or another. As society has grown and bettered ourselves we've begun to leave that practice behind and pay people to do these jobs instead; though often in ways that's barely above the absolute minimum they're entitled to. So of course, it's not a huge leap to believe the when humanity finally figures out how to make machines do it for us we'll use them as mechanical slaves, things that we own and would feel no shame in making do every job that we hate.
Subservience is set in an unspecified near future, one that is very similar to our own, with recognisable smartphones and cars, but with very subtle differences, such as every vehicle being electric, and computers being much more advanced than they first appear. We're eased into this new time as we meet a family going through a crisis. The mother of the family, Maggie (Madeline Zima) falls ill suddenly, and is rushed into hospital where she has to stay whilst waiting for a heart transplant. Her husband, Nick (Michele Morrone) is left to manage the household, including his young daughter Isla (Matilda Firth) and baby Max (Jude Allen Greenstein).
Having to hold down his job as a construction foreman, as well as taking care of both kids and the house, Nick decides to purchase a Kobol android, a robot that looks exactly like a person, but can perform any task that the family needs. With the help of Isla, Nick picks out Alice (Megan Fox) from the showroom, one of the most advanced models on the market with smart learning AI. As Alice settles into the family home things go well, with her cleaning up after the children, making the family dinner, and tucking the kids into bed at night. However, when Nick messes with Alice's program just a tiny amount, to get her to forget the plot of Casablanca so that she can watch his favourite movie with him, it opens the door for things to start going wrong.
As Alice begins to learn her core programming of doing what's best for her primary user, Nick, puts her at odds with the wellbeing of others. She sees Nick as her sole focus in the world, and when she learns that sometimes you have to do something people don't like because it's what's best for them in the long run Alice sets out down a road that will lead to murder.
Subservience is a mixture of domestic drama with a dash of The Terminator thrown into the mix. For much of the film's runtime we're spending out time with Nick and the family, watching as they adapt to life with Maggie in the hospital. There's added drama such as Nick's construction crew being replaced by machines and how he has to navigate the guilt of being kept on, and Maggie's recovery having ups and down, but for the main part it's a very normal kind of movie. You could easily replace Alice with a human character and the film could follow many of the same steps in its journey.
The main thrust of the movie (no pun intended) comes when Nick has sex with Alice. Alice does this as a way of lowering Nick's stress to keep him and the family safe and happy, whilst Nick does it because he can't stand by his sick wife without cheating with the help. Again, a very common trope for this kind of story which isn't at all surprising in large part due to a large percentage of husbands leaving their wives when they fall sick (some studies has this as high as 20%). Substitute in the maid becoming obsessed for her boss with a robot whose wires have gotten crossed, and we've got the core plot of subservience. The problem is, even when a human goes crazy and wants to be with another person to the point where they do terrible things they can be stopped, but a robot is much more dangerous than a person. And this is where the film takes on an almost Terminator-like approach.
Whilst we spend a large part of the film focusing on family drama the latter half turns into a fight for survival as Alice will stop at nothing to remove Nick's burdens that would allow the two of them to be together, namely his wife and kids. Whilst this portion of the movie doesn't take up a huge amount of the runtime it's very entertaining, and the shift in tone works well thanks to the foundational work that went into the first half. It's easy to believe Alice takes this turn, and some of the more uncomfortable moments in the film are before she becomes and out and out villain as you have to witness some very tense domestic scenes.
To this point, the main cast all do a fantastic job throughout. Fox has perhaps the hardest task in the movie, playing a character who can't really show emotion for most of the film. She plays machine well, with the kindness and care she displays to the family having this sense of fakeness to it that sells the fact that she's not human. As Alice becomes more and more of a 'person' you can see cracks starting to form, and you end up watching her performance very closely, waiting to see the mask slip for just a second to reveal the obsessed, murderous robot beneath.
Morrone and Zima are great throughout too, with Morrone going through a huge range of emotions as Nick's life falls apart in multiple ways. There are times where he feels like a man on the brink of a complete breakdown, but the tenderness and care that he shows towards his wife in the quieter moments are some of the best. Zima is relegated to spending much of the first half confined to hospital rooms, or recovering at home, but as the film progresses ant it becomes clear that her family is at risk she shows a strength and drive to protect her children from the murderous machine that would make Sarah Connor proud. One of the best scenes in the film sees her and Nick verbally sparring over the fact that he slept with Alice, not least because it feels like his excuses and reasonings absolutely deserve to be shot down, and Maggie goes for it full force.
Director S.K Dale does a great job at building an interesting world, and whilst the focus on the family always keeps you interested you keep finding yourself wanting to learn more and more about this world with all of the small peeks at it we get scattered throughout. There are a number of scenes where things seem very recognisable to our own world before you realise that someone in the scene isn't actually human, and that these machines have become enmeshed in almost every part of people's lives. It's a world you want to spend more time in, you want to know how far this goes, and the final scene of the movie will likely have you wanting more; even if just so it can answer the question of if the robot uprising began because a man put his dick in something he shouldn't have.
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