| B | Fantastic Fest 2026 |
Very interesting examination of a society that places too much emphasis on minute-by-minute safety and happiness.
I was impressed by many of the technical aspects of the movie. The locations were interesting, even as sterile as they were. The sound design was different, with a lot more silent spots than I am used to in a movie. And they used a real squirrel for filming, and seemed to get everything they needed out of it. (In the Q&A, the director said for years people tried to talk him out of making the animal a squirrel because it would be so difficult to film. But eventually one of his producers knew an animal handler who said, “I like challenges,” and off they went.) Very interesting, also, to see old original IBM PCs (which I used to work on) being used as the computers in some scenes.
The script was good, especially defining the emotionless society. There were a couple of times where the ever-present personal AIs were kept silent, because them interrupting consistently would detour the story. But overall an interesting and thoughtful approach to what we might be giving up if we try to achieve a constantly stress-free life.
Trailer (Finnish, but you can turn on CC, then in Settings set Auto-Translate to English. Worked surprisingly well, given how badly I’ve seen YouTube auto translation fail in the past.)
