(Discontinued Film)
Giant pictures, 2022. Sci-fi comedy. 91 min.
Grade: 3 out of 4
Keep an eye on actress Ashley Hutchinson, who debuts as a lead in Discontinued, and has to make it work mostly by herself. A low-budget movie probably filmed in the actors’ homes with their own wardrobes, this movie actually makes them feel real and lived in in a way that many others do not, but it’s Hutchinson on whom the movie depends, and she does not disappoint. Believably portraying a suicidal millennial who’s right at that point pre-middle age where thoughts of death become terrifying and omnipresent, she even manages to display chemistry with at least one performer who might never have even been in the room with her. (That’d be special guest big-name Robert Picardo as her therapist, filmed entirely in one-shots, and probably on set for a single day.)
There’s something of a young Elliott Page vibe to her, though where Page’s major performances have tended towards optimism, Hutchinson doesn’t so much. At the same time, she doesn’t confuse “depressed” with “insufferable” – her Sarah seems like she’d be fun to know, but impossible to make happy, mired as she is in existential sadness, and legitimately depressing human encounters.
Overdosing on pills in hopes of ending it all, Sarah instead suddenly sees a bizarre infomercial appear on her TV. A host (Langston Fishburne, son of exactly who you think), who appears as multiple versions of himself, reveals that the current reality as Sarah knows it is a simulation, run by humans from the 32nd century. And not just that, but it’s one that’s about to be…drumroll please…Discontinued. In a week.
Everybody on Earth can choose between two options: transfer to another simulation that’s basically a Heaven made of your favorite memories, or stick around on a mostly abandoned planet that they’ll leave running until there’s nobody left. In order to ease the transition, each person will get an invisible guide (Fishburne again) to answer any questions.
In any other movie, we might wonder whether Sarah had a pill-induced hallucination. But the message isn’t unique to her – everyone on the planet has heard it, and is surprisingly chill about the whole thing. It’s sort of a digital version of Jehovah’s Witness paradise, or the Rapture, except it requires no faith – the Guides can prove they are who they say, and being left behind is entirely up to the individual. Besides, when reality turns out to be a simulation, who better to trust than a Fishburne?
Other movies have dealt with imminent ends similarly, like the Canadian Last Night. With the sorta-apocalypse a foregone conclusion, though, we’re left guessing what the inevitable twist might be. Without spoiling, it’s a little bit Burgess Meredith Twilight Zone, and a bit Thornton Wilder (notably the final act of Our Town). But it’s more about the personal journey than the event; where most people might choose based on personal pleasure, Sarah has issues of control. The thought that she’s powerless is crushing, but the realization that everyone in the history of her reality may have been powerless too is freeing. Unless they actually did have power and blew it. There’s a limit to how much her Guide will tell her, since he wants her to make the choice without regard for what others do.
First-time feature director Trevor Peckham gets the best out of his cast, in modulated scenes that could easily have gone too broad. Michael Bonini plays an obnoxious startup bro whose stereotypical behavior stops just short of being ridiculous, and conveys the perfect amount of douchery; Charlie Talbert plays a no-boundaries dad whose inappropriate nudism masks an eerie level of acceptance. Fishburne seems like he might have been inspired by the chronicoms on Agents of SHIELD, or Star Trek‘s Data – as an AI, he has either learned how to become a good friend, or just simulate it brilliantly, all while evincing a perfectly even temperament.
Like Our Town, Discontinued can drag a bit in the middle, as we simply observe behavior and mark time till the inevitable. But then the inevitable happens, and it keeps going, pushing the movie beyond both the endpoint we expect and the story limits we might have believed were there. Along the way, the fact that even the most ridiculous characters feel grounded keeps the viewer’s interest from premature termination.