2073

Let me start by saying that I agree with all of the politics, and all of the warnings in this movie.

Despite that, this is a terrible movie. There is no story, the characters are not developed, the plot is thin as wax paper, and I honestly don't think much effort was made for it to be otherwise. The film is a vehicle for delivering the political message.

For me, that's not good enough. Better to call it a documentary and to just explicitly make that argument.

The producers intersperse political history from 1980s-2024 to explain how the world tumbled into a fascist global system, where average people are serfs, and only a few wealthy people survive, on the backs of labor performed by robots and AI.

I agree. I agree. But a movie also has to be entertaining. This was slow, boring, depressing (as is the news today), and painful to watch.

Ignore this being called a "movie". It is not. It is a documentary punctuated by some illustrative fictional moments. Just keep in mind that this can be a very upsetting viewing experience.

As if we needed anything else to make us angry, divided, stressed, worried, etc, this hard slap across our faces is meant to wake us up to what is actually happening in our world...and where we are heading if we let it. No wonder the 1% want us to keep our eyes locked on our smartphones and Tik Tok.

I was not expecting this when I pressed play, but I'm glad I squirmed through it.

Be sure and stay beyond the credits, as there is an interesting hidden scene.

I need a drink...

2073 tries to say something about the future, but never quite figures out what. The plot meanders through a series of vaguely futuristic set pieces without much urgency, and the characters mostly exist to deliver clunky exposition. It looks decent but it has nothing new. Kapadia's most uninspired film to date. Easy to forget almost immediately after the credits roll.

The disappointment is sharper given Kapadia's previous work. Films like Senna and Amy were emotionally gripping, deeply human portraits that found poetry in real lives and tragedy in ambition. Even Diego Maradona, for all its kinetic chaos, was anchored by a clear emotional core. In contrast, 2073 feels strangely hollow.

This is not a film. This is not a documentary. This is a warning.

This is a quote from 2024's 2073, a dystopian docudrama that brilliantly uses news and television clips to weave a science fiction story we are already living. Imagine Facebook doom scrolling for one hour and twenty-four minutes and you have the emotional impact of this prescient movie. Unfortunately, I believe the title is as optimistic as the movie is bleak. 2028 would have been more appropriate, as we hurl toward Democracy's demise faster than the director, Asif Kapadia, could imagine.

2073 premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival in the category "Out of Competition," which could not be more appropriate for Kapadia's dynamic, passionate, admirable and beautifully rendered imagining of our near future. At its heart, 2073 immerses us into a Meta-verse where humanity teeters between incredible technological advancements and deep ethical dilemmas.

Staring the frighteningly beautiful Samantha Jane Morton (Alpha from The Walking Dead), 2073 sets us in a vast metropolis that is both breathtaking and bleak, showcasing a stunning yet haunting city filled with vivid colors and dark shadows, the film maker using lighting to evoke emotions, and creating the documentary feel of this art piece. With skyscrapers towering into the clouds and streets pulsating with technological energy, each frame is meticulously designed and its this attention to detail that establishes a captivating visual language, beautifully complimenting the nearly extinct plot.

Morton is a brilliant actress, and riveting on screen, but there's only so much heavy lifting she can do in a film so obviously motivated to sway audiences to one side of the political debate. In today's polarized politics, this feels manipulative even while I silently scream "Yes, yes, yes!" It's as if the director is inside my head, capturing my dismay at today's state of affairs and my fear of what's to come.

This is a solid film. Very watchable. And at times, extraordinary in it's achievement of blurring fact and fiction. But at its core, its as shallow as the news anchors it highlights, reading from teleprompters with dead eyes and an emptiness that makes us feel as if we are reliving the news like a memory versus witnessing it in real time.

I encourage you to watch it. And I know it will change nothing.

God Bless the Americas.

The atmosphere this "movie" sets up is brilliant. The downtrodden, harrowing, depressing, soul crushing vision of the future. Had it told that story in the fictional 2073 world and simply tied it to the real life events, it would have worked fine just fine.

But then it drops back into early 2000's and starts weaving real life footage of events from all over the world into its tread... and loses what was built at the start.

It becomes a documentary that's trying to present itself like in a feature film form but it ends up being neither. There isn't just one message here, there are countless, each touching on everything you'd see on some conspiracy theory You Tube video or obscure website visited by people with questionable mental faculty. Reemergence of the far left in mainstream politics, corrupt interconnected politicians, systematic disassembly of democracy, abuse of power, abuse of social media, racism, environment, and so on and so forth.

Don't get me wrong, all of the topics it touches are worthy of your attention and should be addressed, sooner rather than later. But the moment you tangle real life events with fictional narrative... the relevance of the message becomes fictional itself.

This documovie offers causes to issues, exacerbates them as a stepping stone into the fictional environment and the offers nothing in the form of a solution, just a melancholic voice over from the main character that deliberately tip toes around what it really wants to say.

Shame. Because if this had been a fictional movie or a proper documentary... I think I would have loved it.