#633 – I Am Ren (2019)

I Am Ren (2019)

Film review #633

Director: Piotr Ryczo

SYNOPSIS: Renata is living with her Husband Jan and their son Kamil. Jan returns home one day to find their house a mess and Renata collapsed on the floor. They go to a counselling retreat for Ren to recover, and she tells the psychologist that she is Ren, an android that is suffering from a malfunction, and is fearful that she is going to be replaced…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: I Am Ren (Also known as The Glitch) is a Polish sci-fi film. Renata is found collapsed one day at home by her husband Jan. They and their teenage son Kamil go to stay at a counselling retreat to try and cure Renata, but she believes that she is an Android that is malfunctioning, and she will be shut down and replaced because she is defective. The central theme of the film is seemingly whether Ren is telling the truth: that she is an android, or she simply believes she is, and is part of a big delusion. That’s the point anyway, but the major problem with the film is that I just didn’t see that conflict. The film clearly shows that she is meant to be an android; from the opening where something moves under her skin voluntarily, to the barcode on the bottom of her foot, and her overhearing conversations about how she might have to be shut down, there’s not really much room left for ambiguity on this central point. you could make the argument that all of these things are simply delusions based on whatever mental illness she is experiencing, but again there’s no space to really question her experiences.

A lack of any emotional depth really compounds the issues described above, and it’s difficult to tell just what anyone is thinking and feeling in response to the situation. For example, there’s a lingering question over whether her son’s injuries were caused by her, or inflicted on him by her husband, and the film tries to avoid giving away whether he is concerned for her, or being emotionally manipulative and abusive. The lack of emotional depth in the performances lends itself to this ambiguity, but also flattens any tension and drama, and just ends with me not really caring about what’s happening. The film is composed mostly of scenes of dialogued whispered between characters, and it’s easy to get bored with nobody just speaking properly, or giving any of said dialogue emotional weight.

The ending again, undoes the ambiguity that the film is trying to convey, and while you might expect it to provide an answer, it just tells you what you already know: Ren is an android, and there was never really any reason to doubt her, particularly when everyone else was acting suspiciously throughout the entire film. With a runtime of seventy minutes, at least the film doesn’t drag on too long, but it still feels like it runs out of ideas long before the credits. There’s really not much to recommend in I Am Ren: it’s a simple idea that should be easy to implement, but fails to build the necessary framework to explore it’s ambiguities. Dull performances, stretched out dialogue, and a sameness in all of the scenes provides very little that stands out.