Year: 

2009

Directed by: 

Jonathan Mostow

Rated: 

PG-13

Country: 

United States

Runtime: 

1 hr. 28 min.

Production Company: 

Touchstone Pictures

Written by: 

Michael Ferris

John D. Brancato

Robert Venditti (source graphic novel)

Starring: 

Bruce Willis

Rosamund Pike

Radha Mitchell

Ving Rhames

Similar Films: 

The Matrix

Gamer

One day when I was young, I was messing around on my computer after school. A friend asked me if I wanted to go play basketball, and I responded No. He said to me, “Get off your ass and come play basketball with us.” That was sufficient for me to comply. The implied argument is based on the assumption that it is better to do things directly (with your body) than vicariously (through a machine). I fully gave in to this, not because I felt pressured but because I agreed with the argument. Surrogates examines this concept on a massive scale, imagining a world in which virtually everybody lives vicariously through machines – walking, talking machines indistinguishable from humans themselves.

The advantages of living via such a machine, called a Surrogate, are obvious: do anything you want, and you’ll always come out fine. Physical sensations are fully felt through Surrogates, but failsafe technologies are in place to shield users from pain. Your Surrogate got killed? No problem, just get a new one (paid for by your insurance company). However, someone has come along with a weapon that not only destroys Surrogates but essentially deactivates the failsafe code to kill Surrogates’ users, too. The first victim happens to be the son of the man who invented Surrogates. The main character, Agent Greer, has been assigned to the case. What he unravels is a plan to make a devastating statement against Surrogate use, a plan involving the military, the FBI, an anti-Surrogate religious group, and one man pulling the strings.

For the most part, the plot is disposable. The setup and characters are the important things in this movie. The filmmakers have done practically everything they could to explore an age of ubiquitous Surrogate use, making a point to show us things like lesser Surrogate models, the experience of talking to a Surrogate whose operator suddenly cuts off, and certain laws that would likely arise in such a scenario. In many cases this type of exposition would be a flaw, but in Surrogates such exposition serves two meaningful purposes. First, it demonstrates how daily life changes on a fundamental level when new technologies become widespread. More importantly, though, it allows us to fully consider such a world so that we can question our own stance on the premise of living vicariously through machines. In the age of the internet (and, to a more specific extent, things like online role-playing games), that is as pertinent a question as any.

The main characters serve not just to advance the plot and explore the world but to present the downsides to vicarious living. At one point in the movie, Greer heads out into the world sans-Surrogate, a rare thing for people to do. He nearly has a panic attack. Some part of him, though, has been longing for this experience, and he refuses to turn back and hide behind a Surrogate. Despite a few physical confrontations in which he experiences intense physical pain, he seems more content than ever. His wife, Maggie, is the opposite. She has not allowed Greer to see her in years, only her Surrogate. Her Surrogate is beautiful, but Greer longs for something that, to him, transcends beauty – reality. In the end, the two must come to their own decisions as to whether they will continue this life, lead a new one, or live no life at all.

Surrogates’ only problem is that it does little to pull the audience in. While it gives you plenty to think about, it doesn’t give you much to feel. Greer and, to a lesser extent, Maggie are our only emotional points of reference, and their emotions are not as present as they should be. Certainly there are scenes in which we see Greer’s pain at being unable to be with his wife in the flesh, and there are scenes in which we see Maggie’s pain and guilt at her inability to free herself from her Surrogate. These parts of the movie, though, come second to the ones we care less about, namely, Greer’s investigation and the mystery of the Surrogate-operator killing device. Because of this, we watch the movie from a detached point of view. It doesn’t much matter to us how things turn out because it is primarily a hypothetical exercise.

As I typed this review on my computer, I checked my email a few times, caught up with others through my Twitter stream occasionally, and chatted with a friend for a minute, all through the machine in front of me. Much of my day was spent essentially the same way. However, I eventually left to go to the movie theater (for a different movie), and in the morning I will eat breakfast at the table with my wife, talk with her face-to-face, and spend some time sitting next to her doing nothing in particular. I could pick up a couple of webcams and communicate with her from the other end of the house through my computer monitor and be a more efficient human, but, for some reason I cannot pinpoint, I really don’t want to do that. Now, if Surrogates were a thing of everyday life, would I want to own one? That’s something I would seriously consider. We seem to be drawn to these things. Is it only after we become dependent upon them that we feel the need to free ourselves from them? I don't know, but Surrogates makes me hope that that need will always be felt.