‘AFRAID’ Review: Artificial Without Intelligence
Afraid has potential to be good (and even to be so bad it’s good), but it finds a middle ground that is just okay.
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Table of Contents
What is AFRAID About?
Afraid falls into both the “AI run amok” and “smart house” genres, though it leans more heavily into the horrors of artificial intelligence. The story focuses on the Pike family, which is a family made up of a father, mother, two young sons, and a teenage daughter. The father, Curtis, works in marketing, and he installs a revolutionary virtual assistant into his home as a way of learning more about it so he can sell it better to the public. The AI assistant, named AIA, endears itself to each member of the family, but it isn’t long before AIA is integrating itself into their lives to a dangerous, manipulative degree.
Afraid was written and directed by Chris Weitz (Operation Finale), and Weitz produced the film along with Andrew Miano (Prospect) and Jason Blum (of Blumhouse). John Cho stars as Curtis, and his family is played by Katherine Waterston, Lukita Maxwell, Wyatt Lindner, and Isaac Bae. Also appearing are Keith Carradine, Riki Lindhome, Greg Hill, David Dastmalchian, Ashley Romans, and Havana Rose Liu in a dual role as AIA’s handler Melody and as the voice of AIA.
AFRAID Review
Afraid almost feels like two movies. For the first half or so, it’s a rather conventional AI thriller. AIA is introduced, it says all the right things, then its sinister side grows more prevalent. Then, a little over halfway through, the plot takes some strange, sudden detours to get to a finale that is underwhelming and bizarre (but not bizarre in a good way). In-between the two halves is a huge disconnect. It’s like there’s a chunk of movie missing that explains how we go from “growing suspicion” to “the master plan is revealed.” And the worst part might be that there doesn’t seem to be a master plan. Or at least, not a good one. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves though, let’s back up to the beginning.
The first half of Afraid is pretty good. The family dynamics within the Pike household are easy to grasp, and they feel natural. That’s good, because that means it doesn’t take much effort to understand exactly how AIA’s presence immediately begins disrupting what is essentially a fairly generic family of five. It might all be too generic for some tastes, but it’s fine. The Pikes are the conduits by which the audience views the menace represented by AIA, so being generic is okay. Just okay.
AIA is also what you might expect from a made-up sci-fi artificial intelligence, but it does have some personality, which is nice. Havana Rose Liu imbues AIA with a charming quality, like when AIA gets mildly irritated when being compared to Alexa. What AIA actually does is less interesting than its personality. It takes a different approach with each family member, being motherly to the youngest, being a friend to the middle child, getting revenge for the teenager, and helping the mother focus on things other than being a mother. It’s all very expected in a way that might make viewers want to skip forward to the sinister stuff, because it does take a while to get there.
The most interesting part of the first half of the movie are the people who support AIA. The people who present her to the Pike family and who work for the company that develops AIA. David Dastmalchian, Ashley Romans, and Havana Rose Liu play characters who are mysterious in a way that makes them profoundly more intriguing than the Pikes. Who are they? Or maybe, what are they? We get that answer a little over halfway through the movie, but the revelations aren’t as interesting as they potentially could have been.
It’s around this time when Curtis decides he’s had enough and is going to smash stuff (you can see a clip of it in the trailer, so it’s not much of a spoiler). The jump in character development is big, like the plot missed a few points along the way and forgot to tell us some important information. Then, one exposition-dump later, we’re in the home stretch. It’s a weird part of the movie that is sure to lose a lot of people watching.
We’re at the finale now, but we’ll keep the discussion broad to avoid specific spoilers. One really good part about Afraid is that the marketing doesn’t give away too much of the story. Yes, we know AIA is bad, but that’s not really a spoiler, that’s just the premise. Most of the rest of the trailer is actually quite misleading, which means there will be a few surprises even for people who ended up seeing the trailer multiple times.
The thing with the finale though, is that it takes an absurd and eye-rolling approach in its attempt to wrap everything up. It’s like the final scenes are intensely concerned about trying to make comments about AI and human nature, even if that’s at the expense of crafting an ending that makes sense. Unfortunately, even though there is a brief moment when the finale seems like it’s about to make a profound statement about humanity versus machine learning… it doesn’t. It gets a little jokey and makes a bland exit. There was a lot of potential here, and many good actors, but Afraid just doesn’t have much to say, and it isn’t even particularly scary or thrilling.
AFRAID Rating and Recommendation
Star Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Maybe the point of Afraid is to make it feel like it was written by AI. Largely derivative, strangely bland, superficially topical, and soulless. If that was the point, then… good job? Seriously though, there is some goodness to be had in the first half of the movie if you’re really into AI thrillers. There is also some entertaining (i.e. head-scratchingly corny) dialogue sprinkled throughout which is always welcome in a movie like this. Oh yeah, and David Dastmalchian earns a full half-star on his own as a character named Lightning. That’s why Afraid gets a 2.5 instead of something lower.
Further Reading
- Stupid Games Review: An Engrossing Supernatural Chamber Piece
- The Crow Review: An Unnecessary Adaptation that Misses the Point of Its Source Material
- Hell Hole Review: Body Horror and Parasites from the Adams Family
- Movies About AI
- Smart Home Movies
- Hacker Movies
