(001LithiumX)
USA/Lithuania. 2020.
Crew
Director/Screenplay – Guy Moshe, Producers – Karolis Malinaushas, Guy Moshe, Linas Pozera, Pedro Tarantino & Matthew G. Zamias, Photography – Thomas Beulens, Music – Sarah DeCourcy, Erez Moshe & Ian Richter, Visual Effects – Multi Media Est. (Supervisors – Felicien Lepadatu & Liviu Miron), Special Effects Supervisor – Artiom Gregorian, Production Design – Paulius Seskas. Production Company – Chimera Pictures/Lithuania Films/Outta the Bloo.
Cast
James D’Arcy (Adam Bird), Anna Brewster (Reena Bird), Delroy Lindo (Donald Stein), Gabrielle Cassi (Maria), Gina McKee (Dr Rhys), Jay Hayden (Dennis Ryan), Juliet Aubrey (Dr Maple), Dylan Pierce (Kenny Bird), Ronin Zaki Moshe (Nate Bird), Majus Motiejus Prokopas (Joshua Bird)
Plot
The year 2048. Sunlight has become toxic to human beings – people can only go outside at night and instead spend most of their time in Virtual Reality. Clones have been created that can withstand the sunlight but they are missing essential aspects of humanity. Adam Bird receives a diagnosis that he has a fatal heart condition. Adam has built a successful business manufacturing virtual reality headsets – a new chip is going to render their product obsolete but his boardroom partners will not listen to his warnings. Adam appeals to his ex-wife Reena to activate Premium 3, a contract in their life insurance policies that allows the other party to bring a clone of the other back to life after their death with any undesirable qualities edited out. However, she is still harbouring bitter resentment due to discovering Adam having sex with an avatar body after which she branded him a pervert and prevented him from seeing their children. Adam now tracks down Donald Stein, the creator of Premium 3, who promises that he can bring Adam’s virtual avatar love Maria to life in a clone body.
LX 2048 was the third film for American director/writer Guy Moshe. Moshe had previously made Holly (2006) and Bunraku (2015), both non-genre vehicles, as well as written the screenplay for the animals attack film Into the Grizzly Maze (2015). LX 2048 was co-financed and shot in Lithuania.
I sat down to watch LX 2048 with no other expectations than a plot description that sounded interesting. It was in very short time that I realised I was watching a strong and intelligent science-fiction film. The world-building that goes on in the first few minutes is impressive’ albeit initially bewildering – James D’Arcy talking to doctors and a psychologist who are clones; he engaged in heated arguments with his fellow directors while seated at the boardroom table in an empty office building wearing a VR headset; talk about sunlight becoming toxic and people being unable to go out in it, followed by seeing D’Arcy driving in the outdoors wearing a full body hazmat suit; D’Arcy seeing a cleaner at the office standing in open sunlight through the window before the realisation that she is a clone.
The spin that turns LX 2048 into some fascinatingly good science-fiction is the revelation that in this future there is an insurance policy where one can have a clone of one’s spouse resurrected after their death with any undesirable qualities ironed out. We see James D’Arcy trying to plead with ex-wife Anna Brewster to activate the policy only to face accusations of making up his terminal condition to get in to see the children again. This is followed by scenes flashing back to the signing of the policy where its ramifications are explained to us, which make for one of the most original and fascinating developments on the Cloning theme. It feels like a full-length episode of Black Mirror (2011- ), one that often seems to overspill with a profusion of intelligent ideas.
The film also delves into Virtual Reality themes in some undeniably intriguing ways. There’s the appealingly outrageous moment where Anna Brewster walks in on James D’Arcy relieving himself sexually using an avatar doll while he is plugged into a VR headset whereupon she immediately accuses him of infidelity and this becomes the cause of their subsequent breakup. The rest of the family is seen as spending more time in VR than interacting in the real world – where the natural assumption is that they meet up and socialise inside the realm and the children have problems dealing with one another in face-to-face interactions. D’Arcy is later seen being tempted by Delroy Lindo with the offer of being able to incarnate the virtual girl he is fixated on inside a clone body. At another point, we see D’Arcy engaged in a virtual phone call where he is telling someone that she should put clothes on, no-one wants to see her looking like a seventeen year-old before we realise that he is talking to his mother.
The film also feels like it is written with someone who has incredibly bitter feelings about relationships. Anna Brewster has no other real characterisation in the film than as a stone cold bitch who puts down or casts everything James D’Arcy says in a cynical light. The script is essentially the story of a downtrodden man trying to find significance – being rejected by his wife and cut off from his family even when he is dying. Even his virtual girlfriend ends up rejecting him once she obtains a clone body.
Some of the most savagely biting scenes comes at the very end where [PLOT SPOILERS] Anna Brewster reveals a plan to have James D’Arcy officially killed, while she goes off to live with the idealised Premium 3 clone version of him and he lives out an anonymous existence in the other house under a fake identity. In other words, the idea of a man having been reduced to absolutely nothing and even having his identity stolen and reduced to a shadow of a person. The film proceeds to put some black twists on things after that point to reach an appealing ending.
Trailer here