Near-future thriller asks some disturbing questions
The low-budget sci-fi movie is a genre rife with big ideas and complex storylines. Empathy, Inc. follows this model by using minimal special effects but maximal audience button pushing. No one will leave the theater without some opinions on the proceedings.
Directed by Yedidya Gorsetman from a script by Mark Leidner, Empathy, Inc. sits squarely in our modern, tech-centric world. Well, for the most part, anyway. Even though it’s set in the Northeast, Silicon Valley is ever present with its talk of cloud storage, startups, and virtual reality. VR, or more specifically XVR (the X is for eXtreme!) is the technological crux of this movie.
After engaging in some low-level fraud in the Bay Area, Joel (Zack Robidas) and his wife Jessica (Kathy Searle) move in with her parents as they try to get back on their feet. Before you know it, Joel as found “an opportunity of a lifetime” in a tiny startup run by money man Nicolaus (Eric Berryman) and über-engineer Lester (Jay Klaitz).
The elevator pitch is simple: Their product will allow a user to experience another reality so convincing that it will induce true empathy, especially since the simulations will involve the downtrodden of society. Feel good for how bad off you aren’t!
The class-struggle angle keeps the venture from being too staid from the beginning, but once Joel begins to understand just how it all works, he’s knocked for a loop he just may never recover from.
From there, Empathy, Inc. morphs into a thriller, complete with blackmail, guns, and not a little violence. It’s a natural progression for a business that starts by promising more than it could ever deliver. Someone’s got to pay in the end.
The Austin Film Festival celebrates the art of storytelling through film, recognizing the writer as the core of the creative process in filmmaking.
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