We Need to Talk About Morgan

by Rob DiCristino

On empathy, character, and “calling the ending.”

Spoilers ahead for Morgan:

You probably missed Luke Scott’s Morgan last year. If that’s the case, you’re Fine. You get most of what you need from the trailer: Ex Machina meets Splice meets a thousand other “creepy person in a mystery box” science fiction premises. Is she human? Is she machine? Where does she poop in that glass room? You get the idea. Luke (son of Ridley) Scott’s debut feature is a strong technical exercise from a filmmaker with a lot of potential. Movies are very hard to make, and Luke Scott is probably going to be very good at making them if he continues to do so. But Morgan lacks soul. It lacks purpose. It lacks that often-intangible quality that transforms a film from a mess of bits and pieces into one of Roger Ebert’s empathy machines. Now, this isn’t to suggest that every movie needs a romance or a hero’s journey or a Jar Jar fucking Binks to make the kids laugh. That’s not what this is about. Plenty of great films challenge traditional structure and revel in their weirdness. This is about building a narrative in which we understand who characters are to each other, themselves, and what pushes them to action. This is doubly important in a film like Morgan, one so interested in the little nuances that separate human beings from everything else.

So, Morgan: At a secluded institution in East Jesus Nowhere, Drs. Simon Ziegler (Toby Jones) and Lui Cheng (Michelle Yeoh) lead a group of scientists to a major breakthrough in the development of artificial DNA. Their prize achievement is Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), a five-year-old girl with synthetic parts and crazy growth hormones. She appears much older than her physical age and displays remarkable intellect and intuition. Trouble is, she also displays remarkable strength and emotional instability. After attacking Dr. Kathy (Jennifer Jason Leigh — blink and you’ll miss her), Morgan is confined to her habitrail pending an evaluation by The Corporation’s risk-management agent, Lee Weathers (Kate Mara). At first, Morgan tests well: she shows empathy for those she hurt and seems to feel real remorse for her actions. Even her handlers, weary of Lee’s cold professionalism, are defensive and territorial. They insist that Morgan is a person who deserves the right to make mistakes and learn from them. Lee disagrees, and after Morgan takes a bite out of the new psychologist (Paul Giamatti — this cast is ridiculous), she insists that the project be terminated. Morgan has other plans.

Morgan should work because it’s got a decent premise and a tremendous cast (further including Brian Cox, Rose Leslie from Game of Thrones, and Vinette Robinson and Jonathan Aris from Sherlock), but it’s dragged down by bland execution and underdeveloped characters. It’s not the only film guilty of that sin, of course, but it’s so much worse when digging into what makes those characters tick is supposed to be the whole damn point. If we’re supposed to be debating Morgan’s humanity and her influence on the larger family dynamic between all the scientists, then shouldn’t we have some understanding of who those scientists are and what shapes their behavior? Take Rose Leslie’s character, Dr. Amy. She’s Morgan’s favorite handler and the lynchpin to this whole escape scheme. She promises to take Morgan somewhere peaceful, somewhere she can soak in the true beauty of the universe and all that jazz. Aside from that, we basically know two things about her: she doesn’t like Lee, and she’s got the hots for hunky kitchen monkey Skip (Boyd Holbrook). There’s a bit early on to suggest that she has “boundary issues,” which sets up her devotion to Morgan, but there’s not much else to go on. Their connection is emphasized in dialogue, but only briefly shown.

A more infuriating example might be the red-hot romance between Dr. Brenda (Robinson) and Dr. Darren (Chris Sullivan), which consists of one conversation at dinner and one scene that implies they’re off-screen banging each other. Again, a better-developed dynamic might add weight to their insistence that Morgan was the “child” that helped build their relationship. Instead, we’re told they share a deep connection. We never see it, and they never spend significant time with Morgan (sorry, wait. Darren calls her “buddy,” so that’s a thing). Dr. Simon seems protective enough of Morgan, but we get the sense that what he’s really protecting is the blood and sweat he put into researching the project that developed her. Dr. Lui reads more as the enigmatic head honcho lady who supervises a number of projects, so no real personal connection there. The point here is that Morgan’s third act shift is meant to be motivated by contrasting Lee’s cold, calculated precision with the deep-seeded emotional bonds that this crew shares with their child. We’re supposed to be questioning what makes a person a person, what right a synthetic creature has to determine its own destiny, and how ethical standards can get wonky when affection becomes a factor. We can’t do that with the pieces Morgan gives us.

Put it this way: it’s never fair to compare movies, but Ex Machina works because Ava manipulates Caleb’s human need for connectivity and, in doing so, displays a weakness and authenticity that Nathan (an actual human being) seems to lack. Caleb is then forced to examine his own humanity (the arm scene!) and, as a result of some soul searching, moves to free Ava from her prison. What happens next perfectly illustrates the way Caleb’s humanity allowed him to be put in that position and the way Ava’s adaptation to humanity allowed her to take the actions she does. Again, it may seem inappropriate to compare one film with another, but Morgan and Ex Machina share so many themes (and the latter film develops those themes in such a superior way) that it’s hard not to see the similarities. None of this is meant to disparage Anya Taylor-Joy, who does what she can with very limited material. Morgan’s character arc is built around her ability (and right) to learn from the mistakes she’s made as a result of her model’s increased capacity for emotion. It’s a great hook on which to hang the film, really, because we often struggle with those same questions ourselves. What right does a person have to make a mistake, learn from it, and progress? Taylor-Joy plays that angle with all the latitude she can, but she’s never given the opportunity to develop it.

Lastly, the ending: I often joke that “if your friend says they saw the twist ending to ______ coming, they’re lying.” I get a lot of flack for that. People say I’m not looking hard enough, or that they just have more experience watching movies than I do.

The reality is that guessing a bad twist ending often has less to do with actual signifiers in the film than it does with viewing habits. It’s natural to speculate, but movies are not supposed to be our enemies; we shouldn’t spend their running time trying to outsmart them. We should allow a film to take us where it wants us to go, and we should judge it as a cohesive whole when it’s over. Case in point: Morgan’s twist ending is total bullshit. Yes, it explains how Lee was able to survive her injuries and why she was so weird around everyone. Yes, it pays off Jennifer Jason Leigh’s “assassin” line and Lee’s sterile, androgynous vibe. But the revelation that she’s also a synthetic person (an older model, free of the tendency toward emotion) rings like a cop out. That’s what my “lying” line is about: the film didn’t earn the twist, so there’s no way it’s going to feel right. It’s not in service of anything. It’s lazy dressed up as profound, answering a question the film never really asked. Morgan ends up arguing that emotional entanglements create complications. That’s fair, but we’re never emotionally involved enough in the film to care.

Cinema Bestius: Blade Runner

This movie has burned so very, very brightly.

#12 – Blade Runner

(Note from your Pope: Here in the ecclesiastic city-state that is my suburban home, my movie infallibility is rarely questioned – except in the case of this week’s film. I’m going to wolf down a “Pope-sized” buttered popcorn while Jan, who is currently writing a BOOK on this movie [It’s only a book of poems, but she claims “it still counts.”] pens this week’s Bestius. I weighed in on Blade Runner about five years ago. You can find that column here.

“What’s your favorite movie?” is a dumb question. It’s an impossible oversimplification… “favorite” in what way? Do you mean the movie I’ll drop anything to watch when it pops up on cable, or the one that meant the most to me growing up, or the one I turn to when life is crushing me, or the movie that made me love movies? Is it Scary Movie Month? My answer might totally change during SMM. Also, could you ask me again tomorrow? Because I’m going to the movies tonight, and I’ve heard this one is AMAZING. Look—there are so many terrific movies out there that you can’t expect a person to choose just one. That’s ridiculous and reductive and kind of an insult to movies and the moviemakers who make them and the movie lovers who love them.

My favorite movie is Blade Runner.

The Plot In Brief: Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is an ex-cop pulled back onto the force for a special assignment: track and kill a gang of rogue “replicants” (human-like androids used off-world as slave labor) who have returned to Earth for unknown reasons. Along the way he meets Rachael (Sean Young), who works for the Tyrell Corporation, the company that manufacturers the replicants. As Deckard is drawn deeper into the case—and toward Rachael—he must confront the true meaning of Tyrell’s corporate motto, “more human than human.”

Roger Ebert famously wrote “it's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it.” Few movies manage to illustrate this as well as Blade Runner. Its action is fairly simple; yet in every aspect (genre, theme, characterization, design) its execution is astoundingly complex. Exploring Blade Runner is like exploring an archeological dig; layer after layer calls back to previous discoveries, unearths new artifacts, and sparks new questions.

We’ve all experienced movies that have “no ‘there’ there”—the movie that’s enjoyable while we’re watching it, but dissolves into nothing in our minds during the car ride home from the multiplex. Blade Runner doesn’t dissolve, it expands. That expansiveness is the key to its place as one of the genre’s most influential films—in spite its lackluster reception on initial release. Blade Runner was one of the first films to take advantage of the new distribution opportunities offered by cable and home video; though it only made back about half of its $28 million budget at the box office, it was quite successful as a rental, and for many years was the Criterion Collection’s top-selling laser disc. It’s a movie that endlessly rewards repeat viewings, released when that was finally becoming possible.

That expansiveness is a big reason for my affection for this movie. I’ve talked about my Blade Runner love on this site here and here; I’ve also talked about my Blade Runner love at parties, school, the grocery store, poetry readings, and the doctor’s office because seriously, have you SEEN Blade Runner? (If the answer is “no,” see Blade Runner.) There’s just SO MUCH “there” there.

You want to talk subtext? Let’s spend the next 10,000 words discussing what Blade Runner has to say about what it means to be human. Or we could break that into sub-subtext: what it means to be human in an environment that commoditizes us, or what it means to be an organic being in a non-organic landscape, or what it means to be an outcast from a society that has labeled us as “other,” or how we make (or whether we can make) moral choices, or the ways in which memory defines us. Blade Runner speaks to all of these and more.

What about genre—shall we explore Blade Runner as sci-fi, or as film noir, or as neo-noir, or as a love story? Or instead, let’s concentrate on a few recurring motifs: the eye, vision, and seeing; the fallen angel, the prodigal son, the femme fatale; photographs, both as talisman and avatar; smoke, steam, and veils of all kinds; the triad of creator-creation-creative urge; artificial animals, the color red, pyramids. All of these motifs deserve attention when unpacking what Blade Runner “means.”

As a work of visual art, Blade Runner may be one of the most significant, influential, and boldly realized films ever produced. Syd Mead (as Blade Runner’s “visual futurist”), with production designer Lawrence G. Paull and art director David Snyer, virtually created the neo-noir, cyberpunk aesthetic. The interior spaces, the street scenes, and the sweeping skyscapes create a future that looks real and arrived at, not set-design-y.

Another 10,000 words could be devoted to the movie’s other standout features: the haunting, evocative score by Vangelis; Ridley Scott’s obsessively precise direction, which guides the viewer’s attention through frames packed with significant images; a terrific script (honed through countless revisions) based on a novel by seminal sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick; and the inspired casting and terrific performances (Ford is never better, in my opinion; and Rutger Hauer is amazing in a role that requires him to be part genius cyborg, part murderous warrior, and part frightened, abandoned toddler.)

Yet what I love most about Blade Runner is that, in spite of its incredible richness, it leaves so much unanswered and unexplained. In the end, that may be the key to its lived-in quality, the secret to its satisfying unpackability: it resists the urge to pick a single “truth” to tell. That’s how it chooses to be “about” what it’s about: by making its questions more about the asking than the answers.

A NOTE ON VERSIONS: We don’t have space here to discuss the seven “official” versions of Blade Runner (Wikipedia does that) or the numerous “fan cuts” (Google “Blade Runner white dragon” if you want to fall down that rabbit hole.) I fell in love with the original theatrical release; my favorite version is the 2007 Final Cut. Director Ridley Scott says that’s his favorite version too, which should be reason enough to love it; it also has what I believe is the far superior ending. (I don’t consider the Final Cut ending bleak; it’s certainly much more nuanced, and leaves some important questions importantly unanswered, which adds resonance to the rest of the movie’s themes and subtexts.) On Blu-ray, the Final Cut is stunning.

Look—I get that not everyone digs Blade Runner. It can seem slow for viewers who prefer straight-up action. This is a movie that takes its time and wants you to see and hear and feel every bit of kipple in the corner, every keening cry of the score. Yet for those who have seen it once and it didn’t “take,” I have a suggestion: if your previous viewing was not the Final Cut, check out the Final Cut. If you still don’t like it, I release you. There will always be a gulf between our hearts, but we can still be friends.

A NOTE ON THE SEQUEL: YES, I am excited to see a neo-noir sci-fi movie starring my boyfriend Harrison Ford and his sidekick Ryan Gosling, directed by the guy (Denis Villeneuve) who just did Arrival. NO, I am not excited that they made a sequel to Blade Runner. I wish it did not exist. My strategy is to just box off the original in my mind, and pretend the new movie is really about a future cop named Rint Dellers, a retired Blame Rugger who used to hunt duplidroids in Space City. Maybe it will be good.

Blade Runner’s Three Miracles: Art direction/production design that creates a future so layered, so boldly realized, and so authentically inhabited that it has influenced science fiction movies since its release; performances (or is this direction?) that demonstrate astounding depth of character through every glance and gesture; and a collection of themes and subtexts that inform each other and challenge the viewer in new ways with each screening.

In nomine Scott, et Philip K. Dick, y spiritu Deckard, Amen.