THE ARTIFICE GIRL - Mark Reviews Movies

The Artifice Girl, XYZ Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 27, 2023

Director Franklin Ritch's screenplay for The Artifice Girl introduces a series of moral and ethical conundrums related to artificial intelligence, law enforcement, and the toll advancements in technology take on humanity. All of that arrives in the promising first act of the movie's far too cleanly straightforward three-act structure, which ultimately feels like a bit of a cheat in a couple ways. The rest of the story amounts to various people and an advanced computer program talking around all of those questions without actually addressing them.

The setup, at least and again, is fascinating. It takes place in a single, windowless room—an interrogation space for the FBI. We meet two special agents with the law enforcement organization, Deena (Sinda Nichols) and Amos (David Girard), who are preparing to question a man about some suspicious activity.

That man is named Gareth, played by Ritch and a loner who specializes in working on 3-D computer models of real people. He used to work for a visual effects company, most known for making photorealistic avatars of dead actors so that their imagery can be used in future installments to movie franchises (The digs at certain movies and the inherently creepy nature of this are specific and appreciated, although it's one of many notions that ultimately feels like lip service to a more important conversation). That wasn't such rewarding work, though, so Gareth has since moved on to a more private and personal enterprise.

The efficiency and effectiveness of this scene, which takes place entirely in a single room and revolves around three people talking, are commendable. It's so simple. The two agents, working for a division that tracks and gathers evidence for cases against adults who solicit minors online, have brought in this man, cold and detached and clearly hiding something, for questioning. We have questions and suspicions about him, too, as a result, but what we come to learn about Gareth and his activities explode that clear-cut premise with even more significant questions.

To put it easily, Gareth has used his programming skills to create an artificial intelligence that is capable of pretending to be a young girl, of convincing people that it is a real human being, and of collecting the personal data of any adult who tries to take advantage of what they perceive to be a real human child. There are plenty of concerns here, and all of them in terms of the hypothetical legality of this practice are cleared up quickly. Now, though, comes the much bigger questions: Who or what is "Cherry" (Tatum Matthews), the A.I. program that is accidentally the most advanced of its kind in history, and what is owed to it or her as an entity?

Initially, the basic concept and execution of this story are fascinating. As soon as the screenplay establishes what seem to the parameters and stakes of this premise, Ritch loses track of where to take this tale.

The signs of trouble arrive immediately with the second scene, which leaps forward a couple decades and finds our main trio in the same or a similar sort of room. The work they have done of finding and stopping child abusers has been successful and continues as part of an independent organization. The question now is whether or not to take "Cherry" to the next step and install her program into a life-like robot, but Amos is hesitant, mainly because he wants the A.I.'s consent for such a move. Gareth argues that, as a computer program without human emotions, it's not possible for such an entity to give consent.

Beyond the characters and the existence of an advanced A.I., little of the second act feels as if it logically follows, either as a thought exercise or as a matter of plotting, from the setup. It offers a major development for "Cherry," but in doing so, it loads the debate about whether or not the program is some kind of sentient entity, leaving the key to the discussion as a little more than a plot twist.

The third act, which jumps even further into the future (Lance Henriksen takes over as the human in the situation) and cheats by skipping the logistics and the concerns of what would have happened in between, is even less convincing, as are most of the performances here. The actors have been given the unenviable task of lengthy, repetitive speeches and dialogue exchanges filled with technological and philosophical jargon. As a director, Ritch seems content with simply letting his performers recite them as quickly as possible, with only apathy or a basic level of emotion driving the monologues and debates.

The movie is little more than some broad ideas about A.I., some vaguely defined complications about the ethics that could come with its existence, and a lot of talking about those things. Despite the strong opening of The Artifice Girl, most of it never finds a way to make this not-so-great debate compelling as drama.

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