Marjorie Prime Movie Review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews

Marjorie Prime

So hey I'm continuing with my series of October recap reviews with this weird little movie I saw about a few weeks ago called Marjorie Prime. Now going into Marjorie Prime I'll be honest, I didn't really know a whole lot about it. I knew it was a Black Mirror-ish movie much in the style of Be Right Back following a story about a future with digital recreations of lost loved ones. And the end result, much like Be Right Back, is interesting even if it's kind of boring.

As a movie lover it really doesn't take a whole lot to keep me entertained and keep me interested, which is why I'm so torn about this movie. Marjorie Prime is kind of enigmatic, in that while I was definitely interested for most of the movie in its story and its characters, it was also kind of intensely boring in its pace and overall tone. This is one of those "plotless" movies where, for about 90% of the movie, nothing really happens and nobody does anything. It's not really about anything and the actual story doesn't kick in until the last twenty minutes of the movie. That's not to say it's completely uninteresting, but that if I had fallen asleep for five minutes I probably wouldn't have felt like I'd missed enough information to need to rewind. This movie was based on a play, and when you look at the differences between the strengths and weaknesses of stage storytelling and screen storytelling it kind of shows that sometimes it's not an easy transition.

That being said, I didn't hate the movie, in fact I still found it had a lot to offer in terms of interesting character moments, great performances, and great visuals. This is a movie that's difficult to review because everything I really liked about it happens in the last ten minutes, when everything it's been building up to comes to pass and it changes the way you look at the entire movie as a whole. This is the sort of thing that really works for theatre but not really for film, but as a fan of both I really enjoyed it.

Final Rating
So yeah, kind of a short review, I'm rushing through these catch up reviews so I can get to Thor Ragnarok and a few others I've been meaning to watch and review. Marjorie Prime is a movie I can really only recommend for theatre people. I know a lot of drama kids from High School who would probably cherish this kind of movie but I can't imagine it appealing to anyone who doesn't go for this sort of thing.