Jon Hamm Delves Into AI In Marjorie Prime Trailer
Jon Hamm and Lois Smith are a new kind of couple in the first trailer for their upcoming sci-fi flick Marjorie Prime. The film stars Smith as Marjorie, a woman who resurrects her husband Walter (Hamm) via a computerized robot following his death.
The trailer begins with the Walter's proposal to a young Marjorie, where she warns that he's too old for her. "We'll grow old together," he says. "I'll just do it a little sooner than you. After a while it won't really matter."
The trailer then flashes forward to the future, where an elderly Marjorie now lives alongside an AI version of Walter, who is still in his youth. This Walter is a bit less real than the regular Walter, but it doesn't seem to matter to Marjorie, who has been without her husband for 15 years. However, it does bother her daughter, Tess (Geena Davis), who shares her frustrations with Tim Robbins' Jon.
"Does it bother you that your mother is talking to a computer program or that the computer program is pretending to be your dad?" Jon asks, eliciting an angry response from Tess, who says that Marjorie is nicer to "that thing" than she is to her own daughter. Jon points out that she could just be jealous of Walter, who represents her father as Marjorie remembers him.
The movie delves into the themes of memory, looking at how we recall past events. "When you remember something, you remember the last time you remembered it, so it's always getting fuzzier, like a photocopy of a photocopy," Tess points out. Marjorie seems to know she is forgetting, as she points out that she doesn't seem to be getting better. "The things you forget," she says to Walter. "Stay with me a while."
Marjorie Prime is based on the Pulitzer Prize-nominated play of the same name from Jordan Harrison. Michael Almereyda (Experimenter) wrote the script for the film and directs, while Stephanie Andujar also stars. The movie, which received positive reviews after debuting at Sundance, is set for an Aug. 18 release; while we wait, see some of the other films that will blow you away this summer.