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Cameron troubles over his betrayal of Poppy lying about his death and identity-isn’t he deciding the future for her rather than letting fate do so? But Glenn Close, sitting by him on a park bench, has an easy answer: In this gleaming new world, to die is always a decision. Yet she’s not wholly traumatized, and in fact seems to be in great spirits throughout the film. The film unsubtly explains that Cameron’s desire to conceal his death from his family is due to the death of his brother-in-law, which left Poppy deeply hurt. As in that film, Swan Song indulges the self-centeredness of a neurotic man without revealing much about the environment that would have influenced such a person. Here, Cleary is unable to resist the tidiness that made Stutterer such a crowd pleaser. Arrangements have been made, and he just needs to get on with them. And so the psychological struggle Cameron undergoes-in having to relinquish his family to a stranger who they will believe is him-is deprived of any idiosyncrasy or complexity. Swan Song’s world, on the other hand, is all figured out, with Close and Beach playing the well-dressed, sage scientists/co-founders who self-assuredly guide Cameron on his journey at their property in a pretty deciduous forest. Oda’s concoction is more compelling than Cleary’s, though, because it exists in an inherently unfinished space, a purgatory in the form of a shabby house in the middle of nowhere where restless beings judge other restless beings. This part of the film recalls, in some ways, the plot to Edson Oda’s Nine Days, in which different souls or future-humans observe the memories of those who have passed as a kind of elaborate test of their ability to thrive on Earth.
#SOULLESS PEOPLE SERIES#
We receive a series of scattered flashbacks into Cameron’s pains and triumphs as he prepares to transfer them to Jack. As Cameron considers replacing himself with his carbon copy, he must face all the memories he’ll be handing over to this other being, temporarily called Jack. The film’s emotional thrust is meant to come from this conflict. Think Her, but anthropocentric, with Black people, and even more earnest.
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A handful of supremely talented actors, including Ali, Harris, Glenn Close, and Adam Beach, do their best to make something, anything, happen within such a stubbornly unimaginative space. The film nests this flimsy set up in a hermetically sealed world of sleek driverless cars, friendly robot baristas, and tasteful Scandinavian design. Is dying alone worth it if it will prevent their suffering?
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![soulless people soulless people](http://chaospet.com/comics/2009-09-28-regrets.png)
(Oddly, those same scientists haven't found a cure for whatever Cameron’s ailment is, which seems like some kind of cancer.) Cameron is running out of time to decide whether he is going to replace himself with a copy that his family will never be able to detect isn’t him. The catch is, we’re in a technologically advanced future-one in which scientists can produce a both biologically and psychically true clone of a person to replace them as they waste away. In this new film, out on Apple TV+ December 17, Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali plays Cameron Turner, a husband and father who is dying of terminal illness, but hasn’t yet told that to his family, including his wife Poppy ( Naomie Harris, who, like Ali, has received her greatest recognition from her turn in the best picture winner Moonlight). That’s my chief takeaway from Swan Song, director Benjamin Cleary’s first feature after winning an Oscar for his short film Stutterer. The future is a racially diverse Western Europe.