Anon (2018)

Andrew Niccol returns to familiar terrain: a near future in which the machinery of observation has swallowed the last of our private hours. Anon gives us ocular implants that record every glance, a police force that solves murders by rewinding a victim's final seconds, and a detective named Sal, played by Clive Owen with the furrowed weariness of a man who suspects he has read this script before. Into his investigation walks a woman with no file, no history and no name. Amanda Seyfried drifts through the frame as an enigma, which is close to the job description. The film is competent, cool to the touch, and thin at the center.

The picture has a thesis, and it is not shy about holding that thesis up to the light. Privacy is the commodity, surveillance is the currency, and the closing argument amounts to a suggestion that we delete our accounts and go outside. That instinct arrives through plot mechanics instead of a podium, though the podium is never far from view. On the subject of representation, the ensemble is overwhelmingly white, with performers of color relegated to the margins and no comment offered on the arrangement. The villain turns out to be a jealous man obsessed with a woman he cannot possess, a choice that keeps her squarely in the role of mystery object pursued. Everyone else is a function of the premise.

There is no racial argument here, no environmental lament, no inquiry into bodies or brains, and the dystopia is framed entirely around data. The anger, such as it is, lands on surveillance power instead of the economic order that built the servers. The result is a moody procedural with a sermon tucked in its coat pocket, delivered with a straight face and a shrug. Niccol can still break down rules and test protocols with real craft. He simply cannot make us care about the people inside them.

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