Review of Self/less (2015) by Kyle C — 22 Jun 2016

Not sure where this film was hiding, but I actually wasn't aware of it's release. Someone else was actually watching it and I decided to camp out with it for a bit. Turns out I stayed for the entire film.

Self/Less is a work of science fiction that imagines a future where a radical procedure looks for cures to some of our major diseases by transferring our conscious mind from one body to another. Ryan Reynolds character is brought in as a part of the still experimental procedure as a casualty of war who receives the consciousness of a dying man.

What ensues is something of the mystery of the procedure and the organization that lies behind it. As Reynolds character tries to come to grips with his mind in a body that is not his own, he also must come to grips with some of the ethical and moral ramifications of the procedure. As the film pushes forwards, the notion of memory begins to collide, and the weight of knowing that his mind has embodied a man with a story that was left behind by his death starts to mess with notions of what is right and wrong. Ultimately what the film desires to uncover is where the idea of our self begins and ends, and in light of this, the battle that wages over our tendency to be self-focused or self-less. It is underneath these central questions that the film weaves the question of family, fatherhood and responsibility.

The film cleverly uses it's title to look at the scenario from a few different angles, and through some decent performances (and some entertaining sequences in the third act that express a shift in gear from the slower pace of the first), it does well to tie it all together in to something that feels real and relevant. The question of who we are and what we do our lives is one that is always worth asking, and the film does well to push us to look at it from a slightly fresh perspective and a "what if" scenario.