The Big Picture
Zoe explores a dystopian future where advanced artificial intelligence companions are indistinguishable from humans, blurring the line between artificiality and humanity. The film delves into the cold and logical nature of a technologically advanced world, where emotions are rationalized and compatibility is determined by systematic algorithms. Zoe raises questions about the artificiality of human connections in an era of hookup culture and instant gratification, suggesting that technology has made it difficult to form genuine connections.
A subgenre of how novel technology has impacted romance and relationships has been expanding for a while now. With Black Mirror in particular popularizing the idea of more morbid uses and consequences of technology, coupled with our timeless captivation with classic romances, there was no doubt this niche was going to explode. This is particularly evident in the positive reception of Black Mirror’s more romantic gems: “San Junipero” and “Hang the DJ.” Both these episodes ruminate on how irrevocably intertwined modern technology is with relationships and romance. Filmmaker Drake Doremus is also renowned for his intriguing takes on modern romances, but his 2018 film Zoe expands on his previous work by entering a Black Mirror-like universe. With a similar cold and dark visual aesthetic, a talented cast and a healthy dash of underdog romance, Zoe dives into the crux of modern human connections regarding rational compatibility, technology and artificiality.
What Is ‘Zoe’ About?
Zoe introduces us to a dystopian, yet plausible, future where “Synthetic” humans are prevalent in society, used extensively in service roles from gardeners and cooks to legal prostitution. However, one company developed even more advanced artificial intelligence that serviced human loneliness — emotionally intelligent and aesthetically perfect companions for humans. Since they are virtually indistinguishable to humans and are programmed with their own memories and history, the protagonist Zoe (Lea Seydoux) and the audience don’t realize she is a Synthetic until 25 minutes into the film. After taking a convoluted and futuristic compatibility test, she finds out she has 0% compatibility with her workplace crush Cole (Ewan McGregor), who ends up breaking the news about her artificiality. Against these crushing odds, they decide to strike up a relationship anyway, but the odds win when Cole is unable to see past her mechanical state, particularly since he was her maker and she was a prototype that was notably not programmed to produce tears.
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Meanwhile, the hookup culture in this technological world is thriving, from prostitution that is legalized because it uses Synthetics to one-night-stands where both parties are temporarily intoxicated by a “first love” drug. Both Zoe and Cole spend a bulk of the film diving headfirst into this culture, with McGregor in particular displaying a haunting performance of being conflicted with his rational need for compatibility and his emotional urges to accept Zoe. In comparison, Seydoux effectively encapsulates the absurdity of Zoe’s situation; being a Synthetic in a human world is bound to evoke a major identity crisis. With the tantalizing and natural chemistry between Seydoux and McGregor, it is hard not to root for this relationship throughout their separate journeys. I won’t spoil the ending of the film, but I will say, the concluding scenes that feature Zoe’s miraculous ability to finally produce tears truly blurs the line between artificiality and humanity.
‘Zoe’ Uses Technology To Address Compatibility
Technology has always had a profound impact on all aspects of human life, including relationships. From only being able to verbally connect with local people, to being able to send handwritten letters and now being able to meet new people with a flick of the thumb, what we look for in partners has evolved. With a significantly wider dating pool and a more immediate means of communication, compatibility is a useful tool to sort through the masses and find your “perfect match.” Doremus really leans into this arc of novel modes of communication and how it’s rationalizing the way we perceive relationships. Like the Black Mirror episode “Hang the DJ,” Zoe features a more systematic way of choosing your ideal partner, based on compatible traits and just generally rational logistics. The machine even tries to fake a pale comprehension of the emotional aspect of relationships by asking deeply personal questions. The raw emotions of falling in love with your partner are also completely rationalized: considered entirely in a neurological and biochemical lens then packaged into a bite-sized capsule. Like the atmosphere of the film, this technologically advanced world is governed by coldness and logic.
Realizing how calculated emotions are in this world makes the Synthetics that more unnerving. Their aesthetic and cognitive resemblance to humans is disconcerting enough, but the fact that the workers were able to code emotionally intelligence into them — a trait that even some humans can’t master — takes rationalizing emotions to an unprecedented extent. The newly developed Synthetics are quintessentially the personification of perfection and that is exactly how the company markets them, claiming they will never break your heart or leave you. They were not only created to serve their buyer but also to serve our increasing desire for the perfectly compatible partner. Why risk heartbreak again when you can order a robot that was made to be devoted to you and systematically fulfill your emotional and mental needs?
The rationalization of emotional concepts feeds into the idea of human connections becoming more artificial with the progression of technology. Doremus’ 2011 film Like Crazy follows a couple struggling to meaningfully connect via technology in a long distance relationship while his 2017 film Newness features a potential couple navigating the instantly gratifying nature of hookup culture that’s propagated by social media. His interest in the current landscape of romance is also reflected in Zoe but is translated to a more symbolic and dystopian approach. We all know hookup culture is derived from instant gratification which itself arose from shorter attention spans and the immediacy of technology. But Zoe amplifies this artificiality of emotions by introducing the “love drug” hookups. The film explores a more luridly and explicitly artificial way to make human connections, perhaps suggesting that technology has made it impossible to do it otherwise.
With Zoe’s tears in the closing scenes, the film takes this line of questioning even further and proposes that maybe there is artificiality in ourselves too? Zoe’s strange adaptation into becoming seemingly human poses the question that there may not be many differences between humans and Synthetics. However, this commentary rings a bit hollow, particularly due to the sorely underdeveloped storyline revolving around Ash’s (Theo James) meditation on the hierarchal difference between Synthetics and humans and how that affects how they relate to each other. Although Seydoux does a terrific job revealing Zoe’s conflict with identity, the storyline itself feels incomplete without Ash. The scenes where James appeared garnered astonishing impact and more thorough investigation into his queries could only have elevated the film. Although Zoe hasn’t recently gained as much appreciation as it did during the Tribeca film festival, it’s exploration on the technological impact on relationships, tension-filled acting and beautiful but sinister atmosphere make it worth a watch.
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