Anon: sci-fi with good ideas but little soul

I wanted to see this film as soon as I discovered it existed a few days ago.

And the combination of Andrew Niccol and science fiction gets me interested ipso facto. 

After all, he has an undisputed masterpiece of the genre –Gattaca- and others that, while certainly not reaching that level, contain interesting ideas and concepts and are quite watchable, such as S1m0ne -how far ahead of AI it was- and In Time. 

Anon, released in 2018, returns to that territory. Niccol writes and directs a future in which there is practically no privacy, with Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried in the lead roles.

Once again it starts from a very powerful idea and, visually, he again shows how good he is at imagining what the world might look like a few decades from now.

The problem is that this time the story never manages to hook you, or even interest you much, the way those earlier works did.

Plot of Anon

The film takes us to a future -not quite dystopian- in which people have an integrated system that records practically everything they see. 

The police can access those memories, review them and use them to investigate crimes.

Sal Frieland, played by Clive Owen, is a detective who works using that technology. And, of course, everything starts to get complicated when a woman appears, played by Amanda Seyfried, who seems able to remain outside the system -and not only that, but to manipulate it- by changing people's memories and visions.

A very Andrew Niccol kind of science-fiction idea

The premise is clearly very Niccol, because it starts with a futuristic but relatively plausible advance and takes it to its least pleasant social consequences. Like buying time in In Time, the digital avatars of S1m0ne or the genetic selection of Gattaca.

In this case it comes very close to the episode The Entire History of You, from Black Mirror or the wonderful Person of Interest.

Also, the film does not need to fill the streets with flying cars and similar concepts to convince you that you are in the future. The on-screen information and Minority Report -style advertising are more than enough to place you there.

A future without privacy

This is probably the part I like most about Anon. The technology is integrated into everyday life quite naturally, and the film quickly makes you understand how it works without having to explain everything.

It is also an idea that is very easy to relate to our obsession -or our governments' obsession- with recording data, images and activity and something I have been very much against for some time.

Obviously Anon takes all of that much further, but it certainly does not feel like a completely implausible future.

Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried work, but…

Clive Owen fits that tone perfectly because he has always worked well in similar roles, as a solitary, cold and cerebral character.

Amanda Seyfried, for her part, with that very distinctive face that even recalls Alita, has a more enigmatic presence.

The fact is that both do their job, but it is hard to get emotionally involved with either of them. That is due less to the performances themselves than to the coldness of the whole proposition, which recalls films such as Cypher -more on that later-.

And that is probably the biggest problem with Anon: its characters lack soul. You are interested in finding out what is happening, but not necessarily because you care much about what may happen to them. They are anything but charismatic.

The best of Anon

Visually, I think it is a very good film. It has an elegant, simple and coherent aesthetic, and it manages to depict the future without overusing cyberpunk sets or flashy technology.

I also really like the initial idea and the way it portrays the loss of privacy. The world it creates is more interesting than the thriller itself. In that universe, you can imagine far more interesting stories than the one you are being told.

The worst of Anon

Because the problem is that it does not hook you as much as it should. 

And on paper it has all the right ingredients: murders, memory manipulation, a person capable of being a ghost in a system that records everything, and an intelligent, obsessive detective trying to find out what is happening

But all of that is not enough. 

Because the film keeps an enormous distance from its characters and from what is happening. And the idea of bringing in the detective's child to humanise him and make you empathise with him does not work. It is too clichéd.

Let's talk about Cypher

Because while I was watching the film, I thought several times about Cypher, for several reasons:  

• Very cold, technological and almost dehumanised science fiction.
• Mysterious woman who knows more than she says and ends up being crucial.
• A fairly clean and distant aesthetic. 

And I feel that in both films -more in this one than in Cypher- with just a little better treatment of the characters, we would be talking about memorable, cutting-edge works in the genre.

That is not the case.

Verdict: is Anon worth watching?

Anon strikes me as an interesting film more than a genuinely good one. It has a great idea, a well-depicted future and an aesthetic that fits perfectly with what it wants to tell.

But it lacks something that Gattaca had in abundance: characters capable of making that good idea truly matter to you. I admire the world Andrew Niccol has created here, but I finished the film feeling that it could have offered much more.

If you like science fiction, give it a chance, but do not expect entertainment on the level of In Time.

Technical details

Item	Information
Title	Anon
Year	2018
Runtime	1 h 40 min
Director and writer	Andrew Niccol
Main cast	Clive Owen, Amanda Seyfried, Colm Feore and Mark O'Brien
Genre	Science fiction, thriller and mystery
Country	International co-production
Available on	Prime Video