Matt Konopka reviews ‘M3GAN’ spinoff, ‘Soulm8te’, an artificial erotic thriller that takes the AI sub-genre backwards.
Horror has been on an AI kick over the last few years, with multiple titles attempting to decode the subject. No surprise, considering the world-altering (and scary) possibilities of the technology. Films such as Companion, Subservience and the M3GAN franchise have all toyed with the concept recently. Enter Soulm8te, the latest to download on screens (itself a part of the Blumhouse Atomic Monster M3GAN universe). Yet, despite strong performances, Kate Dolan’s (You Are Not My Mother) erotic cyber-thriller fails to do much else besides copy the coding of what’s come before, but this time, sexy.
Penned by Dolan and Rafael Jordan (Poseidon Rex), Soulm8te drops us in the near future, where tech company Canta has just been acquired by mega-conglomerate Ultima Robotics. Canta employee David (David Rysdahl) recently lost his wife to cancer and has returned to work right as Elon Musk-type Ben (Arty Froushan) is taking over. Despite obvious romantic interest from co-worker Aubrey (Claudia Doumit), a very lonely David decides to try out Ultima’s new companion robot, one whose sole purpose is to love him unconditionally. Dubbed Sara (Lily Sullivan), the relationship begins sweet but turns deadly once David rewrites her coding to make her feel more human…leading to her developing her own needs and jealousy.
If that sounds a hell of a lot like the aforementioned AI horror films, well, that’s because it is. Look, during any time of uncertainty around a specific fear, you’re going to see a whole cache of movies with similar ideas. That’s fine. It happens. Soulm8te’s issue comes from the fact that it feels a lot like Companion, if that film’s male villain was the protagonist. Groaning out loud? You should be.
Throughout Soulm8te’s hundred-minute runtime, I found it impossible to ignore the far superior Companion and the way the film turns Sophie Thatcher’s love-bot from that movie into the villain here. Talk about short-circuiting. To David’s credit, he’s not a bad guy, but he’s not necessarily someone you root for, either. Sure, he’s sad, and I sympathize with his loneliness. His decision to rewrite Sara’s coding to make her more human may be dumb, but hey, it’s a horror movie. Characters make poor decisions. Still, that doesn’t negate the fact that the minute Sara says she loves him, David wants to bail. I’m sorry, but I can’t get on the side of a guy who has sex with an AI bot programmed to do whatever he wants without its own will. The whole thing screams “creep” to me.
Where Companion was a major step forward in the subgenre, Soulm8te’s one giant step in the other direction.
Through Sara, the filmmaker attempts a conversation about impossible beauty standards and the idea of the “perfect woman”. As the android reminds us, such a woman does not exist. But that doesn’t stop the men of the film from trying to create their blond-haired, blue-eyed fantasy. Consider me shocked (not) when the droid is described to David as coming with three different outfits…summer dress, nightclub, and schoolgirl. Sigh. Men really will f*** a robot before going to therapy.
That said, Soulm8te frustratingly undercuts what shallow commentary there is with an objectification of Sara that’s a little too interested in her body. So much so that it reminds me of the ’90s sci-fi erotic horror, Species. Here, we have a female antagonist representative of men’s fear regarding women and the unfair standards placed on them. The fem-bot uses her beauty to her advantage, mostly killing through sex. That leads to one “holy shit” moment that should be in the year’s top ten horror movie deaths. But, because we see Sara through David’s eyes, the film inadvertently makes her that objectified object to be feared. One too many times, the camera lingers on her nude figure, including her introductory scene. It’s not the intention, but where Companion freed its fem-bot from chains, Soulm8te ends up vilifying her and her sexual power.
It’s a film at odds with itself, flip-flopping between feminist commentary and pulpy trash. Still, I can’t deny Soulm8te’s entertainment value, even if it’s problematic.
That’s in large part thanks to an unsurprisingly standout performance from Sullivan. The perfect woman may not exist, but Sullivan gives the perfect portrayal of an android who’s had enough of taking orders. Rather than shoot for a more emotional delivery, she imbues Sara with a deadpan, robotic tone that works wonders for the creep factor. Even in the most intimate moments, Sullivan’s eyes appear as dead as the circuits peering through them. She’s cold. She’s calculating. And she’s frighteningly nimble, contorting in all sorts of poses to take down those who stand in her way (just like her little sister, M3GAN). I cackled during a dance number where Sara sings at a bar, voice flawless, yet face totally blank.
Dolan also manages to (mostly) capture the vibes of the golden era of erotic thrillers (the late ’80s to early ’90s). From pathetic men to jealous lovers and femme fatales, Soulm8te has all the hallmarks of a traditional slice of steamy thrills. The filmmaker lets us know exactly what we’re in for right from the start with a sex scene shot under that iconic, soft blue lighting that immediately takes you back to movies like Fatal Attraction or Basic Instinct.
While I wish I could say Soulm8te fell more in line with the thoughtful intelligence of Companion, it’s more akin to another artificial erotic thriller, Subservience. It, too, makes the mistake of telling the story from the least interesting point of view, while mixing in light commentary that has little to add to much better recent films of the sub-genre. Still, Sullivan and a few cheer-worthy moments of gore make this an enjoyable enough watch. Just don’t expect it to download to your memory as anything beyond that.
Soulm8te is now available to watch on digital platforms via Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.
