SIMULANT – directed by April Mullen – written by Ryan Christopher Churchill – SPOILERS ⁓

This is the story of Faye (Jordana Brewster) and Evan (Robbie Amell), a wealthy married couple who purchased simulant replicas of themselves as a means of life-extension. They periodically transfer their accumulated experiences to the inactive dopplegangers, so that when they die, none of those memories are lost. As Faye explains to Evan while persuading him to buy the thing: “We activate them and now they’re us…Our love lives live on.” Select memories can be redacted, but the manufacturer advises against it. Faye, without notifying any authorities, activates Evan’s doppleganger after Evan dies in an automobile accident, and removes any memories of his death, or of being a simulant.

Though the new Evan is plagued by nightmares about the crash that killed him, he believes he survived the event. But when he displays an ability to use chopsticks better than the original Evan could ever manage, Faye begins to have second thoughts, and her qualms are reinforced by the his continued (and possibly improved) ability to play the piano.

When she realizes that Evan 2.0 is a person rather than a machine, she informs him of his true nature, and ends their relationship, calling it a “betrayal” because he is not her husband. One might leap to the conclusion that she thinks she is betraying her late spouse, but it is the simulant who is betrayed by being deceived into participating in a relationship that is not his own. Just why Faye wanted Evan’s replacement to be undocumented is a matter of conjecture. She might have been considering divorce before his death, or perhaps she saw his death as an opportunity to rebuild Evan to her own specifications.

Nexerra Corporation manufactures the simulants, and the latest models, including those purchased by Faye and Evan, look and behave like humans, sometimes too much so. A law enforcement agency called AICE (Artificial Intelligence Compliance Enforcement) has been created to enforce the Four Precepts, which stipulate that simulants shall not:
– inflict harm on any human being
– modify themselves or any other simulate in any way
– commit an act against international or local law
– disobey their masters.
The Precepts are much more restrictive than Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics. The acronym AICE brings to mind another organization that uses only the last three of those initials.

Aside from the parts about self-modification and disobeying their masters, these requirements would apply to humans under existing law. All of them would apply to humans living in slavery. No wonder Desmond Han, the mysterious fellow who designed these advanced simulants, quit his job over ethical concerns.

The suspense, and there is a lot of it, is provided by AICE Agent Kessler (Sam Worthington), and his battle with the simulant underground led by Casey Rosen (Simu Liu). Kessler takes personal satisfaction from the pursuit of errant simulants, because a malfunctioning unit was responsible for the death of his son. His capture of the rogue unit called Esme (two versions of whom are played with gripping intensity by Alicia Sanz) puts him on Rosen’s trail and points him at Faye’s illicit spouse as well.

Is an artificial intelligence born (or activated) with the same rights as humans? If the device contains all of a person’s experiences and memories, what difference remains between it and the original? Muscle memory might be lost in the transfer because the arms and legs of an android use different mechanisms to move. (Evan’s muscle memory is not only retained, but also improved upon.) Ancestral memories, if they exist, would likely be conveyed only by DNA.

How would being uploaded to a virtual existence in the cloud differ ethically from being uploaded into an android body? Would it be a case of “out of sight, out of mind”? Robbie Amell also stars in UPLOAD, a series that discusses another side of that question.

Rosen has hacked Nexxera’s computers, modifying the next simulant update patch to remove all behavioural restrictions. As the time nears for the release of the update, Kessler closes in on his prey. The ultimate confrontation between Rosen and Kessler happens at Evan’s cottage in the woods, where a brief exchange of gunfire leads to this conversation between Evan 2.0 and a fatally-wounded Kessler:

EVAN: “Are you a god-fearing man?”
KESSLER: “No.”
EVAN: “You probably don’t believe in a soul. Few people truly believe in a soul anymore, yet those same people would still consider me inferior. I know that’s how I felt when I was like you.”
KESSLER: “If you want to be equal, then you help.”
EVAN: “That might be true, but even if I did, you still wouldn’t look at me as one.”

The outcome remains ambiguous, even in the final frame.

Director April Mullen told Brian Cairns of CBR: “The ending is quite surprising and horrific in ways depending [on] how you see it. I couldn’t stop thinking about the film and the script. For a month, I was torn up about these universal themes of, ‘If you could bring a loved one back, would you? If you could have a simulant of yourself, would you download your memories and have it be in your basement to activate if you passed away? Would you be OK with that? How do you come to terms with mortality and immortality?’ All of those themes kept me thinking…I started by [advocating] for humanity and anti-AI. The script made me have an open heart towards simulants, AI, relationships, and love. Who am I to stand in the way of those things if you are being fulfilled? “

Mullen will next direct a film adaptation of Edward J Cembal’s recently released novel THE MONSTERS IN OUR SHADOWS.

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SIMULANT can be streamed on HULU, and is available on DVD,
and on Blu-ray (from Finland).