Adam Bird (James D’Arcy) gets some bad news straight away. His heart is failing. But we’ll get back to that. He also works for a tech company that isn’t exactly up to speed, sticking to old school virtual reality instead of moving on to brain chips, the new fad in staying connected. He’s ready for the shift but others in the company aren’t so convinced. Then there’s his wife Reena (Anna Brewster), with whom he’s separated, keeping the kids from him and still upset for that time she caught him with his VR lover (Gabrielle Cassi). Also, the sun has turned deadly so it’s only truly safe to go out at night. Oh, and if you do go out in the real world, it’s mostly clones, which gets us back to Adam’s heart. That’s his way out, but there’s a cost.
Writer and director Guy Moshe packs a lot into his stylish future drama LX 2048, a competently made and good looking bit of sci-fi that offers a bleak look at a time not for far away perhaps. The setup is intriguing with Adam still taking to the daytime streets in a specially made hazmat suit and driving to an office where no one works anymore, everyone linked at home by VR. Only clones hang out, cleaning the empty spaces. The clones are mostly exact duplicates of actual people but tailored for something a little different, which is where Adam finds himself, his option for staying alive is to die and be reassembled as something better suited for Reena. Her “insurance spouse”.
Don’t be distracted by the temptation to believe this something it isn’t though, LX 2048 not a pulse-pounding techno thriller with Adam in a kind of race against time loaded with set-pieces and stunt-heavy action. Instead, this is more an exploration of relationships and consequences in a time where we are more connected to everything but utterly separated by the passions that define us. Indeed, there’s a lot about that the film could have dug deep into as surely the concepts of what being human means become tenuous when we only experience life trapped in our brains.
However, the film settles into a sort of talking home invasion as Adam gets a pistol packing nighttime visitor (Delroy Lindo), whose role I won’t spoil, and a second half swirling in dialogue that has us skipping back and forth in time. What is said has some interest, and there’s plenty clever in how Moshe weaves a story about the implications of speedy technology in improving humanity (and a kind of shot at global warming). I liked best the idea of a couple facing the idea of getting a second chance with a lover made specifically for them and what that could do as a thriller, but that gets a little lost in the more grounded complications of real life marriage.
All of this leaves LX 2048 feeling more like a filmed stage play with limited sets and small movements than a film production. D’Arcy spends a lot of time alone in a visor talking to no one on camera. As that, the film succeeds, like a random mix of Noah Baumbach‘s The Squid and the Whale and Ridley Scott‘s Blade Runner. I can’t say I was disappointed, even as the whole thing isn’t what I was expecting or hoping, as there’s a lot of smart ideas and a slew of good performances (Lindo especially) that earn this some credit. Recommended for those who like their science fiction cerebral rather than explosive.