In this new film, out on Apple TV+ December 17, Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali plays Cameron Turner, a husband and father who is dying of terminal illness, but hasn’t yet told that to his family, including his wife Poppy .
The catch is, we’re in a technologically advanced future—one in which scientists can produce a both biologically and psychically true clone of a person to replace them as they waste away.
A handful of supremely talented actors, including Ali, Harris, Glenn Close, and Adam Beach, do their best to make something, anything, happen within such a stubbornly unimaginative space.
It makes sense to project corporate sales work far into the future, since so much of the tech we’ve gotten over the last few decades relies heavily on an attention economy.
This part of the film recalls, in some ways, the plot to Edson Oda’s Nine Days, in which different souls or future-humans observe the memories of those who have passed as a kind of elaborate test of their ability to thrive on Earth.
Swan Song’s world, on the other hand, is all figured out, with Close and Beach playing the well-dressed, sage scientists/co-founders who self-assuredly guide Cameron on his journey at their property in a pretty deciduous forest.
Cameron troubles over his betrayal of Poppy lying about his death and identity—isn’t he deciding the future for her rather than letting fate do so? But Glenn Close, sitting by him on a park bench, has an easy answer: In this gleaming new world, to die is always a decision.
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