I hope you are enjoying the use of your Amazon virtual assistant technology, Alexa, because this thrilling sci-fi introduces another likeable virtual assistant but with a wishful feature!
What is this 'feature', you ask? There's a new, one-of-a-kind virtual assistant introduced in this recent comedy, drama and sci-fi written and directed by Noga Pnueli. It works as a time-travelling device! Imagine if all Alexas had this feature, the entire planet would be in chaos!
Deborah (2022) is a thrilling film about a group of friends who meet for the weekend to celebrate the engagement and wedding of Albert and Ada. Albert, the groom-to-be, is a tech guy and he proudly shows off his new device named "Deborah" to his friends.
To prevent a valuable lamp from falling to pieces and hurting their pet dog, Albert freezes time which his friends notice. He reveals that Deborah can reverse time at their request, as long as it’s “only” up to 48 hours before but there are side effects.
During this weekend get-together, the friends drink, get drunk and tease each other. In these tease sessions, they begin to judge one another and take aim at each other's dysfunctions. To save face and their relationships, this group of friends put Deborah to task by messing with time until they are faced with unexpected and uncontrollable side effects.
Review
This is one thrilling and unique film. Most recent films are like a remaking of past films or familiar stories but Deborah's plot and the setting is an original idea and I commend the writer/director for a well-done job.
I admire the good, sometimes funny and smooth dialogue between this cast of "friends" that explore the areas of life a person may rewind if given the opportunity. I think the virtual assistant's time-travel feature reveals some of our fears about advanced technology and its influence on our lives. It also brings up the morality question —to what extent would we go to abuse this device?
We cannot deny that if we get our hands on a device like this, we would want to right so many wrongs that some, if not everyone, would abuse it one way or another. Just like some scenes where Albert is seen abusing his high school crush, Nora, sexually and after he rewinds the time so she won't remember.
The cast is great and so is their chemistry. It was good to see Sophia Bush and Deborah Ann Will in action as Nora and Ada respectively. I must say it was a bit awkward at the beginning of the film trying to understand the characters, but it got better after the first ten minutes. The visual effects are great, particularly the glitch scenes where we see the characters shake like an online game with a poor bandwidth connection to portray that the side effects of messing with Deborah were taking place.
The only scene I did not so much like was the final one when all the friends became crazy, hurting each other. It was dark, moody, a bit glitchy and in slow motion that it was difficult to see who was fighting who. I wish they'd made that part lighter.
Overall, Deborah is an engrossing drama/sci-fi which you will want to watch to the end. I give it 4 stars out of 5.
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Images are screenshots from the movie and cover is edited with Canva