Black Mirror, S7, Hotel Reverie (Netflix)
Hotel Reverie takes a fascinating high concept idea (‘what if you could actually escape into a film?’) and weaves an entertaining, surprisingly emotional tale out of it. The story follows actress Brandy Friday (played by Issa Rae) take part in a high-tech remake of Hotel Reverie, a 1940’s melodrama that is this world’s equivalent of Casablanca. A new technology allows her to enter into the space of the film and record it in real time as she plays against the virtual recreations of the original film’s characters. Awkwafina plays the woman in charge of the crew running this technology as they attempt to keep the narrative running on track with the original film despite Brandy’s real-time reactions to the world around her. The concept may seem hard to grasp but works quite flawlessly visually. The centre of interest in the story is when the virtual recreation of lead actress Dorothy (played by Emma Corrin) becomes sentient as a result of Brandy’s deviations from the original script. This leads to an existential crisis for Dorothy and a romance between the two as Brandy seeks to escape further into the film. The relationship creates an emotional hook that gives the story more weight beyond the core technological conceit. Movies are always about escapism, much as the act of watching this very story is, so to actually allow someone to escape into a film and make their own world with the characters within it is an ingenious idea.
Despite the longer 77 minute runtime, this is very well paced and engaging, often thanks to Corrin and Rae’s great chemistry and the revolving tension between keeping the film exactly as it was and Brandy’s desire to live in the film herself. It funnels into a moment of sudden pain for Brandy that sends the story hurtling towards a tragic yet hopeful end. The idea of a relationship between a sentient virtual character and a real person is fascinating, and invites reflection on ideas of post-humanism in such a technologically advanced world. Corrin is especially excellent in her portrayal of a confused yet disarmingly intelligent sentient being that isn’t quite human yet feels close enough to it that her connection with Brandy feels believable.
Through Brandy’s increasingly desperate and emotional actions, the story suggests that eventually films may not provide enough of an escape for us anymore. Our emotions as we watch a film are unreciprocated by the figures on screen, and so the only deeper escape would be to go into the film itself where you can make real connections with characters. It also serves as a fun, layered critique of the state of modern Hollywood filmmaking. Given the amount of films now pointlessly remade to profit off cultural nostalgia, the story invites us to question why audiences don’t seem to want any risks being taken with adapting beloved material for the modern day.
The story has a lot on its mind which prevents it from fully probing each idea as much as it could do, but it is nonetheless entertaining, thoughtful and surprisingly emotional by its conclusion. It is already of length but would be well worth adapting into a feature film.
