Wifelike (2022) || Hmmmm....

about 1 year ago

Still on my quest to watch light-hearted movies, and chick flicks with a good storyline, I saw this and felt like it would be a good watch. I read the synopsis of the play and already had some ideas about how the movie would go. In the world of the near future, the prevalence of AI species made it more “human-like,” and in this scenario, wife-like.

They live among humans and as expected, there’s a struggle. So, I pictured AI species that override their owners to take over the world. It seemed plausible that the storyline would go in this format. I was about to give up, but I decided against it at the last minute. Let’s see what the story would say.

Wifelike (2022)

This movie was released in August 2022. It was written and directed by James Bird and starred popular actors like Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Elena Kampouris. It’s a mixture of Sci-fi and thriller and presents a world where the disparity or distinction between humans and AI blur.

The story revolves around a grieving widower, Agent William, whose job as a detective involves hunting down shadow organisations and people who capture these AI women, known as companions and use them as weapons or sell them on the black market. Following the death of his wife, he seeks solace with a companion from Wifelike Company, whose looks, form and mannerisms are programmed to represent his late wife, Meredith.

As the newly reformed Meredith embarks on the path to becoming more like the one before her, she encounters individuals from her past who play a crucial part in her memory that for the time being, she doesn’t remember. However, when a shadow organisation, SCAIR, that threatens everything the Wifelike Corporation stands for makes contact with Agent William’s wife, he goes all out to stop them. In a myriad between the past, present and the future. With twist, turns and a startling realization, Meredith must now make a choice.

Review and Rating

I won’t lie, this movie looked promising. The very first scene was like an opening into the floodgates of that controversial but at the same time scintillating bridge between the world of humans and that of a fast-developing phenomenon, which is AI. However, as I began to watch, the hopeful expression on my face began to dwindle till it was more or less nonexistent and I had a stoic expression bordering on a scowl, on my face. And this is for a few reasons.

Before that, I’d like to applaud Elena for her interpretation of the character, Meredith. Even though the entirety of the movie did not bode her character well, she still did a good job in the prevalence of the bad acting all around her.

I was utterly dumbfounded by the level of patriarchy and misogyny exemplified in this movie. From the scantily dressed ladies to the unnecessary sex scenes. This last part on its own deserves a full paragraph. I didn’t get it. Maybe they were trying for the idea of soft porn, but it was obvious that we would have gotten the message behind the movie without any of that. Whether or not there was chemistry between Williams and Meredith, it killed it for me, that the sex scenes were frequent and baseless.

It was odd to me at first that the movie was from the male POV, but I decided that I could bear with that if the display of patriarchy was not too obvious. And it was in fact obvious and disturbing. So, the camera was spent in most of the scenes, roving over naked women’s bodies. I could see their attempt at slow-burn but it was rather unsatisfying and unpalatable to my creative palette.

As if the bad acting wasn’t enough, the plot inconsistencies were on another scale entirely. I could understand their need to structure the plot episodically, thus, beginning in the middle. But it fell short and I failed to understand at some point where the movie stood or where it was going. Skipping from one point to the next, the message was remotely delivered, but at the same time, it was more than difficult to comprehend the various “packed” scenes.

And as is expected with any film of plot irregularities, the film ended rather confusingly. The action was generic and its scenes were way below its sci-fi predecessors. James Bird is a laudable director. I do hope that he takes his rather creative sci-fi ideas to projects that are less cringe than this one was for me. Overall, I’ll give Wifelike, 4.4/10. You can pass time with it but it's almost certain that you will immediately forget about it the moment you're done.