It turns out the title of the movie THEM has a double meaning, depending on who uses it: from the view of a superior alien race with God-like powers, it refers to humans, whom the aliens control by putting them into a dreamlike state, ostensibly in order to protect them from harming themselves or other humans. From the perspective of humans, it refers, of course, to said aliens.
One day, the brother of the lead alieness decides to wake up a human because, he says, that is what their father would have wanted, the father later on revealed to have died long ago.
Having woken up and effectively attained free will, the human, Daniel, sets into motion a series of events, as he pursues what he really wants (to be back together with his wife before he went into the dream state), which ends up at a great cost to others who are also woken up.
Okay, so the philosophical lesson I take away from this movie is that free will entails at least the possibility that our pursuit of happiness will lead to deep unhappiness. Even if we find happiness, it may come at the expense of the happiness of others, in which case free will leads to the possibility of self-harm or harm to others.
The film compares this, it seems, unfavorably, to a scenario that is utilitarian in the sense that the maximum social good is attained not by maximizing each individual's happiness but by finding a medium in which nobody is truly unhappy, even if that means they are not even aware what they are missing and are essentially deprived of free will.
I cannot help but notice some biblical allegorical undertones here: the "waking up" is very reminiscent of eating from the fruit of knowledge, the brother and sister reminiscent of archangels on opposite sides, and the father may be an allusion to the notion of God itself.
From that angle, the position the movie seems to take can be better understood: humans, born in sin, are liable to destroy themselves if it ever happens that God forsakes them (=the father dies). Better, then, to keep them perpetually in the ignorant but blissful state in which they were before they ate the fruit of knowledge.
I strongly disagree with this authoritarian and patronizing philosophical stance, but that is not why I gave the film a low rating.
As a motion picture, this should not just communicate but entertain. On the latter front, it fails completely: the glacial pace, the halting delivery of lines, occasionally with weird cadences, and the choppy proceedings turn this movie into one hell of a boring experience. I was tempted several times to stop watching, and had to fast forward some self-indulgently lingering static scenes.
Even on the communication front, the movie did not seem to really succeed, judging by so many reviews that profess not to understand what it is about. This matter is not helped by incoherent aspects in the story itself. For example: the aliens arrived on earth, yet they were once humans? The aliens were there for generations running humanity, yet Daniel went into the dream state only as an adult?
The only thing the movie has going for it is nice cinematography, and that is why I did not rate it lower.
For an example of a philosophical science fiction movie with a similar theme but which succeeds spectacularly, see INFINITY CHAMBER (2016). Also, see my explanation/Review of it if the ending is not clear.
