An exploration of how memories are created, define us, and fade, Marjorie Prime started life as a science fiction play (unusual in and of itself) and begins with the powerful Lois Smith having conversations with a simulacrum of her dead husband (John Hamm), in his prime (something of a pun, since a Prime is what they call these comforting A.I.s), which learns and becomes "more human" and more like the lost one the more it interacts with people. Her daughter (Gina Davis) and son-in-law (Tim Robbins) are also part of an ongoing conversation as are other Primes, asking questions about whether we're no better than A.I. in our approach to memory, its unreliable nature, and how it creates, even for us, only ever a partial picture of the past. What the script perhaps does best is create the sense that these Primes are indeed A.I.s, in the way they speak, parrot certain phrases, and convince themselves and others of their reality. It pulls of a couple twists, and when I thought it had run out of twists, it hit me with a final scene that really brought all those themes home. Very intelligently done.
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Siskoid
An exploration of how memories are created, define us, and fade, Marjorie Prime started life as a science fiction play (unusual in and of itself) and begins with the powerful Lois Smith having conversations with a simulacrum of her dead husband (John Hamm), in his prime (something of a pun, since a Prime is what they call these comforting A.I.s), which learns and becomes "more human" and more like the lost one the more it interacts with people. Her daughter (Gina Davis) and son-in-law (Tim Robbins) are also part of an ongoing conversation as are other Primes, asking questions about whether we're no better than A.I. in our approach to memory, its unreliable nature, and how it creates, even for us, only ever a partial picture of the past. What the script perhaps does best is create the sense that these Primes are indeed A.I.s, in the way they speak, parrot certain phrases, and convince themselves and others of their reality. It pulls of a couple twists, and when I thought it had run out of twists, it hit me with a final scene that really brought all those themes home. Very intelligently done.