Marjorie Prime - Film Review
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Marjorie Prime is a 2017 American science-fiction film written and directed by Michael Almereyda, based on Jordan Harrison's play of the same name. It stars Lois Smith as a Marjorie Prime, Jon Hamm as a Walter Prime, Tim Robbins as Jon Prime, Geena Davis as Tess Prime and Stephanie Andujar as Julie. Music by Mica Levi.
The movie analyses, through beautiful monologues, the themes of memories, self-identity, relationships, family and surviving after drastic changes in life.
The movie is set in the year 2050, in a luxurious peaceful house in Long Island near the beach. Marjorie is 86 years old and she is affected by health problems which interfere with her ability to remember. Tess is her daughter and Jo is her son in law. Walter is Marjorie's husband but he has passed away and inside the house, he is the hologram.
In the movie, the lights inside the house are often very dim; the music further accentuates the mood of the different scenes, sometimes becoming foreboding.
Marjorie's character is played by Lois Smith, who is very familiar with the role since she had played Marjorie Prime in a play in a theatre set up. Lois Smith was 87 years old when she took the role of Marjorie in the movie.
During the interview with
TheWrap at the Sundance Film Festival in February 2017, CEO Sharon Waxman asked Lois Smith if she would like to have a hologram, Lois replied she would not know where to put it, but she has to give it more thought.
Marjorie Prime talks to a younger version of her husband Walter who passed away 15 years earlier. Walter is very sophisticated, handsome, soft-spoken and he helps Marjorie to remember their relationship, recounting over and over again precious stories of their past.
Walter is a prime, a very complex three-dimensional projected image. Technology is advanced and a computer program allows Walter Prime to learn memories from Marjorie and especially from the other members of the family.
Walter Prime learns memories especially from Jon, Marjorie's son in law. Jon has recommended a prime for Marjorie to help her every day to remember. A younger and attractive version of Walter was chosen by Marjorie herself.
Tess is concerned about her mother spending so much time with Walter and about the possibilities of different versions of memories. Tess states what people remember is the memory of a memory and then memories fade away like a photocopy of a photocopy.
The family carries painful memories but the only person who seems willing to talk about it is Jon, who in turn feeds the memories to Walter Prime making him promise not to talk about them to Marjorie.
In the interview by
TheWrap CEO Sharon Waxman at the Sundance Film Festival in February 2017, Director Michael Almereyda tells the movie originates from a play and he was very excited to translate it into a movie. The play uses holograms and the idea behind the artificial intelligence is to challenge what it means to be human. The author of the play is Jordan Harrison and Almereyda adapts the script for the play to make the movie.
"Jordan Harrison was thinking hard about his grandmother who was affected by Alzheimer' and losing her memories. His parents wrote a diary with exciting anecdotes about her life to help her to hold on the memories and ultimately her own identity. That idea has become the base of the play." "What about a hologram that could provide companionship to someone who is losing the memory? How would that shake up the family's dynamic?"%%- Almereyda.
John Hamm is the hologram, Walter. When John Hamm was interviewed by
TheWrap CEO Sharon Waxman at the Sundance Film Festival in February 2017, he said what the movie does very elegantly and surprisingly emotionally is jumping the timeline a lot. The movie plays beautifully with the idea of where we put the people in our memory, is there a place that person lives in our memory? He thinks there is a special place in our memory. For example, when you think to a person, you remember a specific part of this person, not necessarily all the spectrum.
Geena Davis is Tess in the movie, the daughter of Marjorie. During the interview by
TheWrap Geena says at the beginning of the movie she is really against the fact her mother has a hologram. Tess is jealous and she wants all the love from her mother for herself. Ultimately things change and Tess embraces the technology.
Holograms
It has been a few years that holograms have appeared in movies. Especially
Star Wars used computer-generated imagery to bring back characters who appeared in a 39-year-old movie. In particular, in the movie
Rogue One the filmmakers digitally recreated two characters, but the use of holograms of actors who had passed away, trigger ethical and legal questions.
Marjorie Prime movie is free to watch on SBS on Demand.
**Reference:
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www.sbs.com.au/ondemand
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84292 - 2023-06-11 06:52:34