Doug Dayhoff

Not every story needs a full explanation of the events you see or a tightly bound and exact resolution. But pay attention because the answers are revealed, sometimes very subtly. I went into this expecting a sci-fi show full of spell-binding visual effects. What I got instead was a human journey that meanders in and out of a semi-futuristic backdrop that does not demand the characters command and control their environment every second they're on screen. The viewer is questioned and challenged about what it is to be human and how much does technology need to play in our lives as we try to see beyond ourselves and our role in this life.

Looking back at this movie again after a couple of years and reading some reviews again, it seems this movie has less and less to do with AI and everything to do with humankind's struggle to control it's environment and, ultimately, each other. It's no wonder slavery continues to exist in the world. The need to dominate seems to be a glitch in the human psyche that, as demonstrated in this film, will ultimately be our downfall. We are presently trying to control our environment through domination and exploitation and are destroying it in the process which will lead to our own destruction.

We happened across this film on Netflix by chance and decided the trailer did a good job of selling it. Overall, beautiful to look at. Great art direction goes a long way in telling a story, especially if it's true to the period. But beyond there the story fell a little short. At less than 2 hours it felt like it ended abruptly without really polishing the stories of the main characters. I was willing to sit through a much longer film to see it realized in more depth and detail. Georgiana was a highly influential figure in the social-political scene at the time (that fact made clear by the captions at the end of the film). But the film failed to illustrate this to the viewer and her character wasn't given a chance to play out this larger profile in the story. The Duke, while it was clear who he was and what he stood for, had moments of translucency that gave us just a hint of his internal struggle. Maybe we could have had a sliver more sympathy for him despite his otherwise abhorrent (behind closed doors at least) treatment of the Duchess. And Charles Grey, a candidate for Parliament, was miscast and underpowered for someone who was supposed to have such power over Georgiana and potentially one of the highest political positions in the country. Well acted, but not terribly impactful. The soundtrack is one of the highlights of this film too. It complements the action nicely and is a joy to listen to offscreen as well.