Subservience

Artificial intelligence (A.I.) is something that looms large in the zeitgeist in this day and age. Director S.K. Dale’s science fiction thriller Subservience, written by Will Honley and April Maguire, takes advantage of the A.I. discussion by centering on a family that needs help and gets it in the sexy maid form of Megan Fox as Alice, who is what’s known as a SIM.

Nick (Michele Morrone) is a struggling father of two, while his wife Maggie (Madeline Zima) is in the hospital, so he decides to go window shopping for artificially intelligent domestic help. His daughter Isla (Matilda Firth) takes off on her own in the huge store, so Nick and a store employee frantically search for her until they find that she’s already being taken care of by Alice, their newest SIM model.

Nick and Alice have an instant sexual chemistry because he’s a man who has eyes, and she’s Megan Fox, robot or not. Isla is smitten with Alice, too, as a mother figure, so it’s a no-brainer that they bring her home for the intended purpose of cooking, cleaning, and child-care. Alice wants to take care of every one of Nick’s needs while eliminating any form of competition. It’s here where Subservience shares some similarities to the horror hit M3GAN.

“Alice wants to take care of every one of Nick’s needs while eliminating any form of competition.”

Fox nails the role of Alice, being cold and distant, much like a creepy A.I. maid would be. She’s the big-name reason why many people may choose to watch this, and she does not disappoint. Zima is also great as the sympathetic mom, who you root for to get well and take her life back from the intruder. The whole concept is cool and lends itself to a bit of a Twilight Zone feel.

While there’s a twist as to who ends up in danger, overall, Subservience is pretty much what you would expect. There’s a scene where Nick tells Alice that she needs to watch Casablanca with him in order to fully appreciate it as opposed to simply reciting the synopsis, which is an apt description of where A.I. is at this point in time. It can copy things, but it’s soulless, and that is precisely the type of threat that Alice poses. She has no moral compass, so her blind loyalty leads to destruction.

I enjoyed Subservience for what it is: a Megan Fox vehicle with a dash of sci-fi. Casablanca it is not, but that’s okay. What it is, though, is a movie that can make the audience ponder what it would do in such a weird situation. That’s what The Twilight Zone did so well in the episode titled “Steel,” where Lee Marvin plays an old boxer who fights a robot in the ring because he needs the money, even though he knows that he’s going to get his butt kicked. Nick is drowning as essentially a single father, and he starts to see that Alice is trouble, but he’s already in too deep. What would you do if robo-Megan Fox was all over you? Choices, choices, choices.