S1m0ne (2002) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Simone is a 10 in my book.

S1m0ne is a parable about the entertainment industry and interpersonal relationships that is more pertinent now than it was 20 years ago. It examines the union of art and technology in Hollywood and how easy it is to lose oneself in the business of entertainment.

First Impressions

This movie seems like it will hit harder now than it did over twenty years ago. Al Pacino is a Hollywood producer who has found the perfect actress and starlet. She’s a computer simulation, but no one knows it. He keeps up appearances that she exists by going to extreme lengths sometimes. But certainly the truth will get out. Time to defrag the hard drive and get ready to meet S1m0ne.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

Hollywood director Viktor Taransky (Al Pacino) becomes upset after his lead star, Nicola Anders (Winona Ryder)–a narcissistic diva, quits his newest picture. He is unable to release the film with her in it and has no money left to reshoot. He is let go from his contract at Amalgamated Film Studios by the head of Production, his ex-wife, Elaine Christian (Catherine Keener).

As Viktor clears his things from the lot, he is met by Hank Aleno (Elias Koteas), a one-eyed man with a gift for Viktor. Spooked by Hank’s intensity, Viktor leaves without speaking to him in detail. A package arrives a few days later for Viktor from Hank. Aleno passed away from cancer and wanted to present Viktor with his Simulation One computer program, which Viktor shortens to SimOne, or Simone (Rachel Roberts). It is a simulated actress that has been trained on the styles of all the greatest actors and actresses. Nine months later Viktor releases his film with a completely digital actress replacing Nicola.

The reviews are stellar. Simone-mania grips the world. The fact that she doesn’t appear in public or do interviews fuels the interest even further. Viktor decides he will make one more film with her before revealing the fact that she is a digital creation. Meanwhile, Viktor spends his time creating elaborate ruses, such as checking Simone into hotels, to get publicity and incite rumor. One man, Max (Pruitt Taylor Vince)–a reporter at the International Echo tabloid–becomes obsessed with getting a photo of her.

Max and his partner Milton (Jason Schwartzman) go as far as fabricating a story of Simone’s childhood to sell papers. Elaine realizes she’s never actually met Simone. When the bust into his soundstage, Viktor lies to the studio executives by saying Simone is a computer-addict and she is not there. He holds rehearsals for his new film with Simone calling in by phone. Max believes Viktor is holding Simone hostage against her will. Viktor sets up a live concert performance creating Simone as a hologram to convince people she’s real.

Elaine worries that Viktor is getting taken advantage of by Simone, but feels better when they finally talk on the phone. Viktor buys his teenage daughter Lainey (Evan Rachel Wood) a fancy car, but she’s more concerned that he’s happy–and would prefer he and Elaine get back together. Simone wins dual Best Actress Oscars, and doesn’t thank Viktor in her speech, which upsets Elaine and Lainey. Viktor is too deep to turn back and cannot admit the truth, so he creates the directorial film from Simone that is so bad, people will stop liking her. It backfires and becomes another success in the digital diva’s catalog.

Despondent, Viktor tries to “kill” Simone, by using a computer virus on her hard drive. He dumps the evidence into the ocean, but security footage only shows him dragging a trunk to his boat. Police believe he murdered Simone, and he has no way to prove his innocence. Lainey investigates the computer and is able to restore Simone. She posts a message from Simone that the actress is okay and Viktor is released from custody. Elaine and Viktor get back together, but continue to keep up the ruse that Simone is alive and has had a child with Viktor. According to Elaine, she’s fine with the fake, as long as Viktor doesn’t lie to her about it.

“Our ability to manufacture fraud now exceeds our ability to detect it.” – Viktor Taransky

History in the Making

S1m0ne, hereafter written as Simone, was writer/director Andrew Niccol’s follow up to his sci-fi film Gattaca. While that film was about humans living up to their potential, or perhaps being prevented from living up to their potential based on their genome, Simone deals with artificial intelligence (to a degree) and the nature of reality. Both have similar themes on reality, one being human reality, and the other being artificial reality. In between these two films which he directed, was another film only written by Niccol that completely bridges the gap, thematically, between Gattaca and Simone. It was called The Truman Show.

The Truman Show was both about altering the life of an individual based on their upbringing, coupled with a reality television show that blasted Truman’s everyday events to the world. Truman became an unwilling and unknowing pawn in Christof’s game. At least with Simone, the only person being truly hurt was Viktor himself.

The film stars Al Pacino in a rare role, playing in his one and only sci-fi film. Mostly known for his work in The Godfather, Serpico, or Scarface, his role here is not strictly too different. It’s a character based role of a man pushed to his limits. Catherine Keener, best known at this time for her role three years earlier in Being John Malkovich also was not an actor that appeared in science-fiction films, though the Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman films she’s done could arguably be considered a type of sci-fi. She would later appear in The Incredibles 2 and the time travel film The Adam Project. This film also served as an early role for young Evan Rachel Wood. She too did not appear in sci-fi properties, until much later. She had a small role in the animated Battle for Terra but is best known for her four seasons as Dolores Abernathy on the television adaptation of Westworld.

Genre-fication

Simone has less in it than its contemporaries when it comes to elements of the sci-fi genre. It is more of a drama and character piece about Viktor and his place in Hollywood. The film functions as a throwback to Hollywood films of the 50s and 60s with references to the older Hollywood system, and to Audrey Hepburn’s performance in Breakfast at Tiffanies. It probably fits into the genre of films about the motion picture business instead. Films like The Player, The Big Picture, or Full Frontal which came out two weeks before Simone. However there are elements that link the film to previous science fiction pictures.

The character of Simone as presented in the film is a photorealistic digital character that is not an alien or a robot. In the world of the movie, she exists only on the hard drive (and is known as a syn-thespian or vac-tor), but in the film itself she is portrayed by a human actress. The filmmakers used some additional visual effects techniques to make Simone appear a little more synthetic. This is counter to other digital characters that films had been creating over the last decade. In those films, digital tools created synthetic characters that interacted with human actors on screen, as with Jurassic Park or the Star Wars prequels. Simone’s appearance harkens back to elements of TRON or Max Headroom, where humans portrayed digital characters and visual effects were utilized to make them appear less organic.

Societal Commentary

However, the biggest thing Simone has going for it is the biting commentary on the artificiality in the motion picture business. The comparison is made, artfully, between Nicola, a real–yet artificial actress, and Simone, an artificial–yet real actress. The punchline being that real people are infinitely harder to work with, having so many quirks and idiosyncrasies. Having a digital actress that does everything asked of them without complaint is so much easier. But keeping that secret is the hardest part of all. Viktor probably did as much work in pretending that Simone was a real person as he would have working with a real person. The audience is none the wiser, appreciating the work of Simone as if she were flesh and blood. Was it something about the digital actress that they appreciated, with her catalog of postures, line readings, and mannerisms. Or was it Viktor’s performance coming through her?

The film anticipated concerns and issues in Hollywood twenty years before they happened. The 2023 strikes in Hollywood were fueled over lack of compensation in an age of digital streaming and AI-written works. Specifically the Screen Actors Guild had concerns about the use of digital doubles and extras being used in perpetuity without credit or compensation. With the amount of visual effects that goes into an average project, the digital scanning of actors likenesses is common. Concerns were raised about the use of those likenesses for projects that the actor was not originally contracted for. What would stop producers from populating a film with digital versions of all the hottest actors and actresses? But more importantly, what would stop them from populating the backgrounds of their shows with digital doubles? It would eliminate the day-players who work as extras, cutting thousands of jobs.

The Science in The Fiction

While the film does not approach Simone as artificial intelligence, there is a fine line about her agency. Does she have anything intrinsic to the creation beyond being a digital model? Was Hank able to impart something into her programming, or is she really just a puppet? The reality of the digital creation of the character was beyond the capabilities of the time, but technology was getting close. Between the digital characters of Terminator 2 or Attack of the Clones, it was possible to create a photorealistic character on screen, but not one that could fool audiences into believing that they were a real person.

The “uncanny valley” is a phrase used to describe the gap between a digital creation looking like a human and the character performing like a human. At the time, it was possible to create a still image that looked real, but add movement to that character and weird things began to happen. Audiences might not realize what was wrong, but they would feel that something was off. Be it the physics of the body, their gait, or any other small things that people innately understand about human movement. This is why the best digital characters still tend to be non-human. Work has come much closer with the use of motion-capture. Animators are able to marry their best digital puppet, with the real-time movements of a human captured by computers. In the second decade of the 21st Century, there is even the use of artificial intelligence to meld images of one video with the action from another. These “deep fakes” have come very close to creating video imagery that appears real. Some people are even fooled by these mashups, yet they do still contain digital artifacts and elements of the uncanny valley.

The Final Frontier

Perhaps the most egregious thing about the release of Simone in theaters is the lack of credit for Rachel Roberts. It was not until the film showed up on home video and DVD that she was given credit for portraying Simone. While it may seem like a publicity stunt, with the studio and filmmakers leaning into the belief that Simone was a real digital creation, it was terribly unfair to the actress who put in the time and effort on the role. This is what SAG and others are fighting against at the current time. Ensuring that actors are properly credited for their likeness on screen.

Simone probably makes more of an impact to those watching it in 2024 than it did when it was released. At the time, Hollywood was equally excited and worried about not being able to discern the artificial from the real. In the present day, this hits much closer to home. The only grievance with the movie is that it appears overly long. At almost two hours, the audience realizes what needs to occur long before Viktor does. It appears to be more of an exercise in exploring all the various avenues that Viktor would need to go through, and for that I applaud Niccol’s. But anticipating the audience’s understanding of the process, and hastening the inevitable would have tightened the film up considerably.

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