Marjorie Prime — the film in which Jon Hamm stars as a fleshy-looking and emotive hologram — has a just-released trailer, which premiered today on Entertainment Weekly, and can be watched below.
Hamm stars alongside 86-year-old actress Lois Smith, Geena Davis, and Tim Robbins. Smith plays Marjorie, a widow who’s now…sort of being rejoined late in life by her husband — to the extent that an A.I.-boosted hologram can be a husband. (The movie seems to form an arc that leads to viewers questioning what exactly differentiates a technologically created, seemingly sentient and emotive you, me, or Jon Hamm from a “real” you, me, or Jon Hamm. Thus, not thematically dissimilar to, well, most A.I. movies.)
In terms intimate, romance-deconstructing/reconstructing sci-fi, it looks like it shares a lot with both Her and the arresting “San Junipero” episode of Black Mirror, both of which hinge on the liberating recognition of intimacy as collaborative projection. The film is based on a Pulitzer Prize-nominated play by Jordan Harrison, which also starred Lois Smith in the same role.
Flavorwire Film Editor Jason Bailey caught the film at Sundance, and wrote:
It’s a movie of ideas rather than effects, which make for the best science fiction anyway. It asks big questions, about the nature of memory, how we choose to consider those we love, how we choose to handle our own grief… The antiseptic settings and anthropological approach (as well as the slightly off-putting photography, which seems weirdly cheap and garish) can keep the viewer at a distance. But those who can tune in to its wavelength will find it strangely satisfying.
Marjorie Prime will be out in New York and L.A. on August 18, but the hologram Jon Hamms will appear in theaters throughout the country in the following weeks. Watch the trailer: