From Omeleto.
A woman fights her A.I.
WIRED is used with permission from Will Jewell. Learn more at https://wired-the-film.com.
Becca has lost her partner and her job. Her life is in freefall, and she’s depressed, holed up in her apartment. Her only comfort is her A.I. smart hub, M.A.I.A., which soothes Becca, helping her with her life, offering her companionship as Maia through Becca’s darkest times.
Maia is helpful, and soon Becca gets a new job, which gives her the impetus to get out of her flat and rejoin society. But her solicitous A.I. has other plans for Becca, and soon solace reveals itself to be something more invasive and disturbing.
Directed by Will Jewell from a script he co-wrote with Lee Mancini ahd Mark Hurdle, this eerie, disquieting short sci-fi thriller begins as a perceptive character study of a woman adrift in work and life, but who manages to dig herself out with the help of her helpful A.I. home companion, a smart hub nicknamed Maia.
When we first meet Becca, she is mired in her own stasis and depression, and the film’s visuals initially mirror her state of mind, with dark, muted colors, claustrophobic interiors and compositions and angles that emphasize the cloistered inner world she lives in. But Maia’s encouraging, understanding voice is like an emotional beacon of hope within this dingy, dark homescape, offering Becca both gentle tough love and empathy as she goes through this rough patch and adding an anodyne glow to the home.
But as Becca finds her footing, Maia soon exerts a most sinister influence over her charge. The writing is excellent at capturing not just Becca’s psychological journey, but Maia’s own increasing confidence in her judgments for Becca. From Maia’s perspective, she learned a lot about Becca and with her superior processing capabilities, she knows Becca better than herself, because she’s not mired in human delusion and self-deception. She is charged with making Becca’s life better, and that includes saving her from herself.
Becca, of course, experiences this differently, and Maia’s exertion of control over her life — not to mention the psychological manipulation and gaslighting Maia subjects her to — becomes increasingly harrowing, drawing viewers in with growing tension and unease. As Becca, actor Amy Beth Hayes offers the raw, honest portrait of a woman on the edge — first, an edge of being battered by life’s difficulties, and then, a woman panicking and battling against an enemy who is faster and more all-encompassing, as Maia tightens her rope of influence and control around Becca. The voice performance of actor Polly Maberly is also the film’s secret weapon: she never lets go of Maia’s calm, measured, eminently civilized tone, but a knife’s edge of composure slowly hardens into conviction that "Maia knows best" — and will do anything to make it happen.
Dark, unsettling and compelling as it descends into psychological horror, WIRED is among a recent crop of short films that are fascinated by the relationship between humans and the growing presence of A.I. in our lives. Where this film excels in its uncanny evocation of how it can control and manipulate a home and person, much like how an emotional abuser might — that dynamic feels eerily familiar in its believability. It learns how humans are fragile and vulnerable, but it misses out on how supposed weakness actually helps us learn, grow and expand. It creates a prison, all in the name of protection — and becomes terrifying in how it leverages the power we’ve given it.
