{"id":3994,"date":"2024-10-09T10:01:51","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T10:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/?p=3994"},"modified":"2024-10-16T10:06:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T10:06:38","slug":"dont-let-them-know-youre-awake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/?p=3994","title":{"rendered":"“Don\u2019t let them know you’re awake”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Watching Michael Tyburski’s Turn Me On for New Scientist<\/a><\/p>\n

An eccentric visionary has created a commune centered around a pharmaceutical — a \u201cvitamin\u201d — that suppresses human emotion. The venture promises contentment to its followers, and to ensure their contentment, all memory of their lives before they join the cult is erased.<\/p>\n

A cult member\u2019s cancer treatment requires she miss her vitamin dose for just one day. So here she is, a young woman called Joy, played with exquisite precision by the young British actress Bel Powley, staring into her bathroom mirror, waiting for the affective life to roll over her like a tidal wave.<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n

Still nothing.<\/p>\n

And then a giggle. Not a sinister, half-hysterical giggle. Not an experimental, off-centre giggle. A genuinely delighted giggle, at finding herself alive.<\/p>\n

Bel goes off on a beach holiday with her friends, still within the the project\u2019s property line. (At the border, a sign planted in the gravel warns of \u201cUnknown Dangers\u201d in the world beyond). And a drab old time they have of it, too, playing the exciting-sounding VR game WOAH, which turns out to stand for “World Of Average Humans”. Joy\u2019s friend Samantha (Nesta Cooper) breathlessly explains: \u201cIn real life I’m a wellness engineer, but in the game, I play an assistant<\/em> wellness engineer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bel finally takes matters in hand and throws away the house\u2019s supply of vitamin. And after all, \u201cit\u2019s just for one day\u201d.<\/p>\n

The strange and wonderful thing about Michael Tyburski\u2019s second feature (after 2019\u2019s excellent The Sound of Silence) is that it is a dystopia built upon an essentially comic view of the human condition. Screenwriter Angela Bourassa creates revealing rules for this tyranny. You don\u2019t have to take its vitamin. That\u2019s entirely up to you. But heaven help you if you miss day of work. This hyper-utilitarian cult isn\u2019t robbing its victims of their potentiality or their dignity. The crime here is that it\u2019s stealing away all their fun and friendship. People are supposed to goof off, is the message here. This is what people are for.<\/p>\n

When Joy and her friends discover sex, things get more fraught. Joy\u2019s uncomplicated and public coupling with her friend Christopher (Justin Min) knocks him for a loop and makes her officially appointed partner William (Nick Robinson) sick to his stomach. Who could have predicted that?<\/p>\n

One by one, as they confront the emotional consequences of their actions, the friends decide to go back on the vitamin. Alone again, Joy is taken aside and told she has what it takes to be an overseer of this place. All she has to do is never see William again, though its clear enough the two are falling in love. Will Joy accept this Mephistophelian bargain?<\/p>\n

The superbly sardonic D’Arcy Carden is the nearest thing the cult has to an authority figure: essentially, she\u2019s reprising her role in the sitcom The Good Place, to which Turn Me On bears a certain resemblance. Fairer to say, perhaps, that Turn Me On is a worthy addition to that small but admired genre that includes The Good Place, 2004\u2019s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Apple\u2019s ongoing TV show Severance.<\/p>\n

The target is, as usual, utilitarianism. The pursuit of the greatest good for the greatest number works well on paper but falls foul, very quickly, of the Kantian imperative not to use people as a means to fulfil your ends. There\u2019s a reason \u201cFor the greater good\u201d is the go-to excuse for tyrants and killers.<\/p>\n

What will the cult will do to Joy if she refuses to join their upper echelon? It\u2019s almost certain to be unpleasant.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeave me a alone\u201d, says a neighbour who came off her vitamins earlier in the movie, \u201cand don\u2019t let them know you’re awake.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watching Michael Tyburski’s Turn Me On for New Scientist An eccentric visionary has created a commune centered around a pharmaceutical — a \u201cvitamin\u201d — that suppresses human emotion. The venture promises contentment to its followers, and to ensure their contentment, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,620],"tags":[154,173,1189,86],"class_list":["post-3994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews-and-opinion","category-screen","tag-comedy","tag-dystopia","tag-emotions","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3998,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3994\/revisions\/3998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.simonings.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}