Equals
Directed by: Drake Doremus
Written by: Nathan Parker
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Kristen Stewart, Guy Pearce, Jackie Weaver, Bel Powley, David Selby, Aurora Perrineau
Drama/Romance/Sci-Fi - 101 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 18 July 2016
Written by: Nathan Parker
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Kristen Stewart, Guy Pearce, Jackie Weaver, Bel Powley, David Selby, Aurora Perrineau
Drama/Romance/Sci-Fi - 101 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 18 July 2016
In this future, human emotions are a disease. Specifically, any notions of love, fun, or anger is a DNA abnormality called Switched on Syndrome, or SOS. Report to your doctor immediately if you suspect yourself of of the warnings - particular sensations or sensitivities to your surrounding environment. The option to commit suicide is yours to make and most of the afflicted choose it around Phase 3; but don’t worry, a cure is just around the corner. “We beat cancer, we beat the common cold, we will beat SOS.”
Director Drake Doremus creates a sterile world. Physical humans, who really function as vacuous automatons, live in a collective, yet very much alone. ‘Coupling’ is strictly forbidden. The populace seems quite content to live in separate housing pods and come together only to work and eat lunch. Well, everyone is content except for the noticeable minority who jump off high buildings or are arrested by Health & Safety for showing signs of SOS aka feeling.
Director Drake Doremus creates a sterile world. Physical humans, who really function as vacuous automatons, live in a collective, yet very much alone. ‘Coupling’ is strictly forbidden. The populace seems quite content to live in separate housing pods and come together only to work and eat lunch. Well, everyone is content except for the noticeable minority who jump off high buildings or are arrested by Health & Safety for showing signs of SOS aka feeling.
Silas (Nicholas Hoult, Mad Max: Fury Road) seems as locked in as the next guy. He illustrates speculative non-fiction at ATMOS, an office that creates stories and illustrations of what it might look like to land on faraway planets or orbit stars. He works on wall-sized visual puzzles at night, receives already prepared food at the door, and maintains an empty stare just like the rest of his peers. Visually, Silas lives in a medium to light blue world. The lightbulbs, ambient sunlight, and TV screens are all blue tones.
Silas maintains vigilance for the SOS warning signs as the TV screens advise him to and hopes the latest suicide won’t be too hard on the office; fingers crossed they find someone to cover the jumper’s work. For some unknowable reason, Silas becomes a bit more sensitive to sunlight; it's brighter. He looks around more, thinks, and looks at his co-worker, Nia (Kristen Stewart, American Ultra), with a newfound curiosity. He has worked near Nia for years, why does she all of a sudden look so different?
Silas maintains vigilance for the SOS warning signs as the TV screens advise him to and hopes the latest suicide won’t be too hard on the office; fingers crossed they find someone to cover the jumper’s work. For some unknowable reason, Silas becomes a bit more sensitive to sunlight; it's brighter. He looks around more, thinks, and looks at his co-worker, Nia (Kristen Stewart, American Ultra), with a newfound curiosity. He has worked near Nia for years, why does she all of a sudden look so different?
Oh no, Silas suspects he has SOS. Is the epidemic contagious? Did he catch it from the co-worker who gave birth to a defective child? The world is full of colors now and Nia looks, what’s the word, like nobody else in the world. Nia warns Silas to control himself or she will report him to the authorities, but it’s no use, Nia is obviously in a more advanced SOS phase than Silas. The two do their best to sneak away in an stringently regulated society to talk and even touch. Should they be discovered, they will be whisked away to the DEN, the Defective Emotional Neuropathy building. Nobody comes back from the DEN.
Doremus and screenwriter Nathan Parker keep us boresighted on Silas and Nia’s level. We learn next to nothing about the rest of the collective. Nobody talks about the past or the future. We only see a small slice of the present; is there a leader? How did humans evolve themselves out of emotions? No idea; that’s for a different film. Equals studies what it is like for two devolving humans, a man and a woman, to truly see one another for the first time and connect with another being.
There are shades of many other films floating around Equals. I see Pleasantville where one moment you are comfortable in the black and white void until the full color palette of reality blindsides you. There is The Giver and its deliberately designed roles until the suppressed emotions bubble to the surface. I also see Her, Gattaca, and Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind and most irritating of all, Act V of Romeo and Juliet and its misunderstandings. Hoult and Stewart do a lot of one-on-one heavy lifting as they show us what it may look like to experience feelings for the first time. Equals contains a large science-fiction slice but for folks looking for an alt-future action/thriller, go elsewhere. Equals is a romantic future drama. We’re here for the feelings, no laser beams or fighting. Drake Doremus conjures a fascinating world, but focusing solely on Silas and Nia restricts the narrative. We get nothing else and Equals suffers for it. Equals is a study in minimalism with its single-mindedness; a bright, complex world shackled in a stale atmosphere.
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