Short Film Review “OK/NOTOK” The realms of life, love, and associated rise of AI finds its identity with comical yet unnervingly relatable impact
WATCH THE TRAILER BELOW:
First, the Recap:
The discovery of our fulfillment. It would seem hard enough at times, of not ALL the time, to be completely satisfied. While we might believe we have everything we need in order, there’s always something (or somethings) that upend the solace, causing us to pause and reassess. In this seeking to have the gratification we seek on all levels, what might occur if the reality we reside within doesn’t precisely allow this to a total, all-encompassing possibility?
It is the near future, and in a modest apartment lives Loretta (Bairavi Manoharan) who, while having a….somewhat….successful time with her actuality, really has more than her fair share of issues she cannot seem to overcome. With companionship in the form of Zane (Jay Taylor) who’s not even human, she attempts to navigate love, entertainment, and every other facet of her needs through him, even as a world outside is in unnerving disarray and the constant live advertisements she must endure in possessing Zane erode her perspectives on everything.
Next, my Mind:
Simply being a normal, everyday, working class person seeking to know and reside within the “basics” of existence emphatically collides with the jarring actuality of AI, its rising dominance in our minds and homes, its penetrating influence on all we are and are becoming, and what it is to finally acknowledge WHO we are in order to discover ever-fluctuating gratification thanks to this wholly original indie short from from writer/director/producer Pardeep Sahota, producer Luke Grech, plus executive producers Lorine Plagnol, Ian Roderick Gray, and Adham Hunt. With an eccentrically conceived blending of genres comprising sci-fi, drama, and dark comedy, it is a sobering, definitive, and uniquely compelling study in our striving for fulfillment contained within the chaos of a near future world where our physical, mental, and societal conventions are in total turmoil, even as we try to understand and meld with it to both satisfying and damaging magnitudes. As I mentioned in another recent review, it’s an exposé on the human condition, only in a more candidly quirky manner.
Through a narrative that immerses us in said insanity via the viewpoint of a young, vibrant, yet ultimately beleaguered British South Asian woman who must contend with all she wants, all she already has yet cannot totally figure out, all ELSE that doesn’t make sense to her, all while dealing with a digital arena where a new and highly annoying series of pop-up advertisements plague and frustrate her even more, this really just scratches the surface of what other aspects of her entire sense of “normality” really is. What makes this film so overtly brilliant in its execution is the literal style in which the story is visually presented to us, a seemingly random, yet NOT so random, cascade of “moments” and “scenes” where the facets of her struggles are highlighted, expanded on, and infused with the aforementioned darkly witty elements that turn what could have been a complete exercise in a mostly depressive state of affairs into something you just HAVE to laugh at. To add to that, it ISN’T per se to MAKE legitimate fun of anyone’s “suffering” as it were, but rather to shine a eerily satiric light on something we wish we didn’t recognize in it all…our OWN culture!
This truly is “Black Mirror” in short film form, and this project has most assuredly been accurately compared to the newest season’s very first (and utterly disturbing!) episode, “Common People”. The only thing being…this film and the foundational premise were actually out BEFORE that season even aired. Interesting factoid to share, thanks to Sahota’s own admission and delight. Thematically, this is more about what DOESN’T the film address when it comes to our very humanity and technologically-driven world?? Covering sex, the economy, class discrimination, trying to rise above our station, being inundated with “upsells” and upgrades (need vs. want), the ideas of work/life balance, the solace we find in routine, love based on money rather than feeling (a superb twist on this is here), things that feed our sense of inadequacy, does more equal satisfaction when it comes to work, pressure to make more in order to do more, mundane conversations, customer service call centers, and really the real or perceived “side-effects” of just BEING and wanting to find ourselves are all contained in this film’s 12-minute runtime, humor, heart, and hubris all in tow.
As hinted at earlier, the imagery utilized here and in the way it is literally filmed is just amazing and really allows the atmosphere to sink in as you watch, as each segment offers its OWN character and sphere of significance, all separate yet wonderfully tied together into a series of events whose reverberations you genuinely feel as you both shrink back and chuckle at the realities being conveyed. Manoharan paints the perfect picture of a person in constant upheaval, even when seemingly content, much less when NOT so content, exuding a well-grounded, totally credible air of joy, agitation, passion, confusion, ambivalence, apathy, and heartbreaking vulnerability through her role here as Loretta. Existing within a virtual bubble that spans across all her sought after wants and needs as provided by her MetaSapian companion who is really a stranger to her, Loretta’s life is a slowly devolving cacophony of all her feelings and desires, sometimes fulfilled, other times never. It’s an elegantly complex yet straightforward performance that Manoharan provides that allows the character to soar far beyond just a baseline exploration of literal ethnic identity.
Taylor does an equally excellent job through his performance as Zane, Loretta’s “companion” whom we very quickly surmise is something not so human, much less how evident it becomes that he’s programmed to be that “everything” to someone based on their particular guidelines….and what they can afford! With it also being conspicuously apparent that Zane’s ability to learn and adapt is still nothing more than automated response to Loretta’s demands in any given instance, he also demonstrates a somewhat unsettling calmness in how “cold” his reactions to the world’s state of affairs are, so “matter of fact”, instead of REAL emotional connection to any of it, much less to her. Of course, even when a certain proclamation Loretta would cherish to hear comes about, it’s so overtly….distant….that it throws her off to an extent that ends up revealing the depth of both frustration and thirst she has to BE seen and adored rather than experiencing the “shadow” of it Zane represents. Taylor takes us through Zane’s mercurial attitudes, reactive conditioning, and final malfunction with highly amusing yet almost ominous sense of our own current future’s path.
Supporting turns arrive from Viraj Juneja (voice only) as a quite cheeky call center representative Loretta speaks with, and Marlon Thomas as, well, a possible new upgrade. So, in total, “OK/NOTOK” delivers the goods via employing a creative, unconventional, bitingly honest, entertaining, and open-minded approach in order to illustrate even the most frightening of (ideally fictional!) scenarios this world might see arrive or that, to certain measures, already exist. Unflinchingly showcasing the concept of US perhaps being the ones who are broken and polarized by the technological reliance we cling to, hence desperately needing a reset, yet therefore potentially then either pervert or proactively redefine the notion of “starting fresh”, may we LEARN from this in order to rediscover what we ALL very much SHOULD long for again….fundamental HUMAN connection….lest we find ourselves in precisely that state of too often having to be ok….OH, not ok.
STAR RATING (out of 5):
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
