Mar­jorie Prime

In the open­ing scene of Mar­jorie Prime, an elder­ly woman and a younger man sit across from each oth­er in a plush liv­ing room and have a long con­ver­sa­tion. If some­thing feels a lit­tle off about the way they are inter­act­ing, we soon learn why. Mar­jorie (Lois Smith) is 85 years old and in the ear­ly stages of demen­tia, and the man she’s con­vers­ing with isn’t a man at all.

He’s a sophis­ti­cat­ed holo­gram, or a ​“Prime”, pro­grammed to look and sound exact­ly like her late hus­band Wal­ter (Jon Hamm), and to recall mem­o­ries that Mar­jorie and her fam­i­ly have fed to him. For exam­ple, Wal­ter remem­bers the time he pro­posed to her, after they saw My Best Friend’s Wed­ding. ​“Julia Roberts, etched for­ev­er on our lives,” Mar­jorie com­plains. ​“What if we saw Casablan­ca instead? Let’s say we saw Casablan­ca in an old the­atre with vel­vet seats, and then on the way home, you pro­posed. Then, by the next time we talk, it will be true.”

The mal­leabil­i­ty and unre­li­a­bil­i­ty of mem­o­ry is one of the cen­tral themes in Michael Almereyda’s film, which he has adapt­ed from Jor­dan Harrison’s Pulitzer-nom­i­nat­ed play. Mar­jorie Prime is a sci­ence-fic­tion film built around ideas rather than spec­ta­cle, and while Almereyda’s vision of the future won’t daz­zle any­one (the whole film takes place inside a bland­ly dec­o­rat­ed beach house), the ques­tions that it rais­es about how we approach death and the ways we memo­ri­alise the dead will sure­ly res­onate with many view­ers. What are we, ulti­mate­ly, but the mem­o­ries that exist for those we leave behind? If they choose to alter those mem­o­ries, or refuse to recall things too painful to remem­ber – as they do with Marjorie’s first born child here – it might be as if we had nev­er exist­ed at all.

Har­ri­son and Almerey­da approach these com­plex issues from a vari­ety of per­spec­tives, with Marjorie’s daugh­ter Tess (Geena Davis) and son- in-law Jon (Tim Rob­bins) each cop­ing in dif­fer­ent ways with her immi­nent decline. Tess is trou­bled by this liv­ing fac­sim­i­le of her late father while Jon is an advo­cate for the Prime’s val­ue as both a com­pan­ion for Mar­jorie and a grief aid, but they each find their posi­tions shift­ing in sub­tle but strik­ing ways as time pass­es and death alters the dynam­ic between the characters.

It’s hard to remem­ber the last time Davis and Rob­bins were allowed to give such rich, mul­ti-lay­ered per­for­mances on screen, while Lois Smith – who played this role twice on stage – is entire­ly won­der­ful as Mar­jorie, alter­nate­ly charm­ing and heart­break­ing as her char­ac­ter slips in and out of lucid­i­ty. Their beau­ti­ful­ly cal­i­brat­ed work ensures that what might have felt like a cere­bral exer­cise remains deeply human.

Mar­jorie Prime nev­er shakes off a cer­tain stagi­ness and it’s regret­table that Almerey­da doesn’t do more to try and dis­tin­guish his film visu­al­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly when he has the tal­ent­ed cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Sean Price Williams at his dis­pos­al, but he makes bold choic­es in oth­er areas. Mica Levi’s keen­ing score ini­tial­ly feels at odds with this qui­et cham­ber piece, but it’s a gam­ble that pays off, while edi­tor Kathryn Schubert’s pre­cise work is vital, with the use of ellipses and flash­backs towards the end of the film hav­ing a pow­er­ful emo­tion­al impact. It’s these moments that linger as Mar­jorie Prime, fit­ting­ly, expands and deep­ens in the memory.