Wifelike review: A sleazy sci-fi story leans into sex and exploitation

Stories about robots or clones make for ideal low-budget sci-fi, because they don’t necessarily require elaborate special effects to mount a convincing illusion. Meredith, Elena Kampouris, is an example. She can be seen in the new, uneven streaming movie. Wifelike. She’s sort of a clone-robot hybrid, an artificial human made by the titular company, which provides “companions” for grieving men (and seemingly only men) who have lost their spouses. These customizable, programmable robots are infused with aspects of a real person, though it’s not immediately clear how much of a woman’s personality can be ported over into an artificial body.

Kampouris plays the “real” Meredith for a few moments throughout the movie; most of the time, though, she’s inhabiting the robo-companion version, with seemingly zero computer enhancements to aid her performance. For her to appear uncanny and like an action-figure replica of a well-known actress, all she needs is a stiff posture and rigid body language.

Image by Paramount Home Entertainment

Meredith and her other companions, as seen in WifelikeThis is accurate. The movie could have made the entire world surrounding them more believable. The concept of companions becomes confusing from the movie’s opening fake advertisement. They’re somehow sold as both fantastically detailed sex dolls and a treatment for crushing grief, purposes that seem at odds with each other. Companions don’t seem sentient enough to inspire the virulent liberation movement seen in the movie.

And in turn, the protestors don’t seem numerous enough to justify a fleet of “agents” like William (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), whose job it is to track down errant sex dolls like a low-rent Blade Runner. As a reward for diligent work, the Wifelike company replaces William’s dead wife with the Meredith bot. But she’s presented more as an employment perk than a grief treatment. These robo-wives are exploitative and naive, disguised as therapy aids or vice versa.

The perversity in a good movie would have been the main point. Maybe it is in this one, too; it’s hard to tell when William’s obtuse case is the audience’s only consistent window into the practice of doling out companions. Wifelike certainly isn’t shy about sexuality early on, and though the sex scenes between William and Meredith are more softcore silliness than genuine provocation, Meredith does have a funny moment to herself: When exploring the possibility of self-pleasure, she gets an “access denied” message from her central processing system.

Image: Paramount Home Entertainment

This moment serves as a substitute for Meredith’s entire movie. She starts to figure out her own point of view through strange sci-fi touches like her “dream mode,” which allows her to select scenarios for a simulation of human sleep. Meredith also starts out speaking in the third person, only gradually accessing enough sense of self to make first-person statements — a neat idea, though kind of an odd programming wrinkle for such a vastly advanced system.

There’s an amusing moment where Meredith must process a waiver in order to cook William some health-threatening bacon, but sometimes Meredith needs to be taught terms that a computer would probably be able to look up seamlessly. What’s the utility of that slower learning curve, for either a grieving widower or a horny loser? As in the 2004 remake Stepford WivesThe movie sometimes seems unsure of how to make companions.

As Meredith’s consciousness expands, she’s drawn into the conflict between William’s company and the anti-companion forces, uncovering buried secrets, hidden memories, and so on. This tension would be tighter if Jonathan Rhys Meyers didn’t play William as such a morose creep from the beginning. About 30 minutes later, it was time to end. Wifelike Continue with the sinking sensation that James Bird, the writer-director, intends to remove layers of masculine decorousness and reveal the entitlements and control beneath. These qualities are just as evident as the sloppy lingerie the companions seem to carry as an accessory.

Image: Paramount Home Entertainment

Instead of creating an uneasy and imbalanced relationship between the two characters, Wifelike excavates some barely concealed subtext and proudly lays it out as text: Men subjugate women, and if their attempts to do that are stymied, they’ll invent new women to subjugate some more. Bird tries to avoid making grief and loneliness seem like a catch-all for men’s misdeeds. It’s just another interesting idea the movie raises and drops.

Bird comes up with plenty of details that could fuel either a crazier B-movie or a more reflective sci-fi chamber piece, and Kampouris seems up for either option, whether she’s attempting to assimilate into a cloistered domestic life or making her way through the “dreamscape” that functions as sort of a virtual reality. It’s the low-rent cop-movie-level material with William and his co-worker buddy Jack (Doron Bell) that ultimately pushes Wifelike It has reached its ultimate uncanny valley and is now beyond the point of no return. What’s supposed to resemble a smart, unnerving sci-fi movie looks more like a lecture about male dominance and deception that keeps foregrounding its least interesting characters.

WifelikeThe film will open in limited theatrical releases on August 12, but is available for streaming on Amazon, VuduThese and other digital platforms for renting and purchasing are available.