Benjamin Cleary
3 connections found
Filmography
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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Directed by Michel Gondry
influenced Swan Song (2021)
Themes Plot
Like a more realistic, grounded take on “The 6th Day” or “Criminal” (and, to a lesser extent, “Total Recall,” “Gemini Man,” and even “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”), “Swan Song” focuses more on the drama and cognitive concerns of cloning and brain-duplication (conscious and subconscious mirroring) than action, adventure, and the out-of-this-world nature of the science-fiction components.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Swan Song has the understated, contemplative sci-fi of stuff like Her , Ex Machina , Morgan and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind .
If Cleary’s prologue evokes memories of the meet-cute from “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” in the process, that also proves to accurately foreshadow a movie that uses a fanciful procedure as scaffolding for a story about someone trying to pave over their deepest pain.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Swan Song has the understated, contemplative sci-fi of stuff like Her , Ex Machina , Morgan and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind .
These titbits are gleaned from Benjamin Cleary’s tear-jerking first feature Swan Song, which occupies the same field of touchy-feely speculation as Spike Jonze’s 2013 man-and-machine romance Her.
Spike Jonze’s Her and Michael Almereyda’s Marjorie Prime are superior examples; this year has seen two fine entries in Maria Schrader’s I’m Your Man and Kogonada’s After Yang .
Think Her, but anthropocentric, with Black people, and even more earnest.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Swan Song has the understated, contemplative sci-fi of stuff like Her , Ex Machina , Morgan and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind .
Like most of the speculative sci-fi movies that hinge on such existential dilemmas (the more intense “Ex Machina” comes to mind), “Swan Song” is frequently held hostage by its own concept.