Ash Sargant

Don’t waste your time and money. Your children could be getting fit or learning things to help them in life. There’s family fun and escapism, and there’s time wasting consumption of nonsense entertainment, and this unfortunately is the latter. Both this, and The Wild Robot as an example, are appropriate in terms of general content for children aged 5 and up. The language is clean and there isn’t excessive violence or negative messaging. However, the former can easily be the source of an enjoyable conversation and the latter is devoid of any thought provoking material whatsoever - although ironically it’s provoked me to write this.

Stylistically this film is superb, both visually and audibly. The visual production is slick as well as the sound design and dark, abstract electronic score. I assume the director possibly drew influence from Paul Verhoevens ‘Show Girls’ and various Kubrick outings. The claustrophobic and isolated atmosphere of the main protagonists lonely existence is perversely enhanced by sickly, garish glamour and 70s/80s aesthetics. I wouldn’t be surprised if 80s teen horror ‘Society’ and John Carpenters ‘The Thing’ played a part in shaping the grotesque aspects of this film. Demi Moores performance is brave, believable and haunting. My only criticism is the last quarter of the film which becomes increasingly bizarre. At times this is fine and enjoyable, but towards the end it goes too far. I appreciate the attempts at humour and genuinely found certain moments very funny. But unfortunately the reactions toward the main characters final mutation from her colleagues and the audience seemed too mild. A more realistic approach would have been much more effective in my opinion. Well worth a watch regardless.