Directed by S.K Dale, Subservience is a science-fiction thriller starring Megan Fox as an artificially intelligent fembot who, after being employed into a family’s household, begins to go beyond her duties and puts those in her care in danger.
When Maggie Peretti (Madeline Zima) is hospitalised due to her weak heart, it is up to her husband Nick (Michele Morrone) to take over the household and sole child care duties of their two children Isla and baby Max. After deciding he needs help, Nick employs the services of an android (Fox) who Isla names Alice after her favourite book character. Alice soon begins to service a lot more than just the household, and after seducing Nick, she soon moves to take over Maggie’s role.
Filmed in Sofia, Bulgaria Subservience is a very obvious anti-AI warning with references to the replacement of human labour with AI workers in the industries of medicine, construction and childcare, however this theme doesn’t ever really get lifted off the ground or beyond a barely there exoskeleton. What is over emphasised however is Megan Fox’s role as a sex-bot, and that is exactly what she has been reduced to. Even if her usual robotic performance is used here to the highest advantage, and may even be a tongue in cheek reference to those criticisms of her, it never quite moves past an overused cliché that audiences have seen before in the likes of M3GAN (2022), Ex-Machina (2014) and The Artifice Girl (2022).
Mixing an erotic thriller from the 80s/90s such as Fatal Attraction (1987) with the fears of sentient technology replacing humans, Subservience is a run of the mill sci-fi that is unfortunately destined to get lost in the many titles approaching the very same subject.
1.5 Screams out of 5
Subservience is now available to stream on digital platforms.
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