WifeLike

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

WifeLike started out as a low-budget science-fiction story where a rich man is offered an android (copy) of his recently passed away wife, and helping her adapt to her new environment. It becomes clear quite early that these androids are only for men, and the female androids are represented as hyper sexual beings that exist to satisfy the needs of their owner: their man. This sets up a very modern hyper feminist storyline where men control robotic woman, and this android industry (led by men) does not really care about real women, and their feelings after rich men "invest a lot of money" to replace their late wife. I got halfway through the movie until the plot started to twist and the story started to unfold. But did it really unfold? Without a single spoiler, the David vs goliath (possessive abusive men) storyline became so focused on despising white western men, that I started to feel sick to my gut on how badly this stereotype was pushed through. The hypersexualisation of the women in this movie, combined with the "strong female empowerment" tone that systematically puts men down. It got old VERY fast, and it broke down most of the movie for me. Jonathan Rhys Meyers (William) is an actor that is either a hit or miss for most of his castings. In this production I felt like he didn't like the role he played and/or he needed the money. Compared to other roles he felt off the entire movie. Combine that with the near 20 year age difference between him and Elena Kampouris (Meredith), and you start to feel disconnected before their first on-screen kiss. And more so after. Elena played her role very well, but I feel many scenes and takes stole her perfomance and made her acting feel sluggishly human, where she stole the spotlight with her android-like voice and behavior. Every writer and/or movie tries to tell you a message throughout their movie, and it felt like this movie was a honorage to hate and despise the "white man". The ending became woker than woke and I really felt like this was the result of an extreme feminist. Only to find out the writer was half native-american male. Which suprised me, and equally didn't surprise me in these woke times of mediocre movie making. Honestly I can mostly recommend this movie to people who'd rather see a world without men. Which is exactly why I wouldn't recommend this movie to most people (still) reading. Absolute mediocre and hateful movie.

When I read the summary it seemed like a sort of Blade Runner in reverse, so I decided to give it a look. I never fooled myself into believing I'd see something with that quality, but I said, what the hell. I guess I probably should have seen the trailer first. WifeLike is a sci-fi thriller that desperately seeks to look deeper than it really is, but that's no good when you have no arguments to do so, let alone even to try to do so. There were a few lines inside the plot that could have provided it with something more beneficial in terms of entertainment and storytelling, but when you don't take yourself seriously, these are the results.