Subservience (2024), directed by S.K. Dale, stars Megan Fox, Michele Morrone, Madeline Zima, Matilda Firth, Jude Greenstein, Andrew Whipp, Atanas Srebrev, and Manal El-Feitury. The film follows Nick (Morrone), a dedicated father with an ailing wife who purchases Alice (Fox), an AI assistant, to help out around the house. After Nick and Alice have an intimate encounter, Alice becomes obsessed with pleasing Nick no matter the cost. When Nick’s wife, Maggie (Zima) returns from the hospital, it becomes clear that Alice intends to take her place. Together Nick and Maggie are forced to stop Alice before she destroys the family completely.

Although Megan Fox feels well cast as a lifeless AI housekeeper/sexbot, she doesn’t seem to be interested in doing any real acting. To be honest, I can’t tell the difference between a human Megan Fox and an android one. It’s strange to say, but I’ve never seen an AI character that’s so lifeless. This is even worse considering that she’s surrounded by a supporting cast who are equally bad/bland. The lead human characters have absolutely zero defining traits and feel as basic and stock as they come. There’s just no effort in terms of characterization and results in characters you would honestly just rather see die. 

The film is essentially just a bland, unfun version of M3GAN (2022). It has nothing new to offer in terms of premise or theme and makes countless head-scratching creative/writing decisions. For example, the first half of the film focuses solely on Nick but then introduces Maggie and expects us to immediately jump on board with her being the new character we should root for. It’s jarring and cheap and makes the buildup of Nick’s character feel like a waste of time.  There’s also no clear motivation or reason for the robot to go rogue – as if she was designed to act that way from the beginning. How are designers smart enough to make an AI robot but add no restrictions on how far it should go to “take care” of its family? On top of this, the characters display zero nuance in how they react to situations. For example, Nick has sex with Alice and Maggie eventually finds out. She is appropriately upset, but her reaction is indistinguishable from how a person would react if their significant other cheated on them with a flesh and blood human being. This would work better if the film leaned into the idea of how humans and AI aren’t all that different, but Alice shows zero humanity. This world clearly treats robots as tools so why do the characters treat them equal to humans as soon as it’s convenient? 

Besides the wonky script, the film also features a handful of strange visual choices. For example, the world attempts to build its futuristic/dystopian world through unexplained things such as surgeons not having mouths for some reason. Is that so they don’t breathe on their patients? There’s nothing particularly wrong with this detail, it just feels lazy in the sense that it doesn’t support anything relating to the overarching story/themes. The movie can’t seem to decide if wants to emulate the real world or be far removed from it and therefore feels disappointing on both levels. 

Overall, this is easily one of the worst films of the year. It’s unoriginal, poorly acted, shoddily written, and confusingly paced. I won’t say it’s punishingly boring, but it does feel like an insult to the viewer’s intelligence. If you want to see a character struggle with his sexual feelings for a robot for two hours, you’ll probably be entertained. However, if that’s what you like to do, find a therapist. D