DIRECTED BY: Marianna Dean
CAST: James Cosmo (Game of Thrones, Braveheart), Zoe Cunningham (Breaking Infinity), Neil Bishop (Beautiful Disaster), Mim Shaikh (Queenie), Billy Price (Hollyoaks), Chris Charles (Hollyoaks).
WRITTEN BY: Simon X. Frederick
PRODUCED BY: Tom Taplin, Marianna Dean. Zoe Cunningham
Try. Fail. Repeat.
In order to become an ATIC agent, Alana Toro faces her final assessment. Inside a simulated space station bar, she must prevent a terrorist attack before it happens. Each failed attempt allows her to restart the scenario, but with limited chances to get it right.
As Alana navigates a cast of guarded and unpredictable patrons, gaining trust proves as difficult as identifying the threat itself. With each attempt, new details emerge and assumptions shift, forcing her to rethink who she can rely on. As the pressure builds, Alana is pushed towards an unorthodox solution, one that may challenge everything ATIC expects of her.
You can watch the trailer here.
DANIEL: This is a low-budget SF time-loop murder mystery that mostly deals with its protagonist Alana’s growth in seeing the sociopolitical implications and human impact of the intergalactic ATIC Empire that she’s joining up with to serve as an agent. Or even more in realizing what the people set against ATIC might really be like, and the realities of the choices made in suppressing them.
But before we get more into talking about those overall themes… I perhaps missed something in the opening scene of the movie where the ATIC supervisor sends Alana on her ‘mission,’ but I didn’t realize at first that this was a simulation. Some of the characters in the station had somewhat stilted readings of their lines, and the interactions between them and Alana seemed to be a far cry from how I’d expect an ATIC agent and a bunch of strangers to behave. Now, maybe that’s an effect of some of the acting talent, and a script which I think is a relative weak point for this movie. But as a simulation it kind of makes sense and fits with things. NPCs in a game have that kind of odd presentation in moving the story along, giving exposition, etc. And in knowing it’s a simulation that can be redone many times even if a mistake occurs, Alana might subconsciously behave very different from how one would in a real situation. Her blunt riskiness does have a sense to it.
Right from the start we also know this is very low budget SF, though not in a ‘bad’ way. There are some decent effects with shots of space and ships, but it soon becomes clear we’re going to be in a very limited set environment with a relatively small cast and general production reminiscent of a BBC television program. That’s the experiences and format that this cast and crew basically comes from, giving this more TV movie vibes compared to cinematic. But in the limited set and story that works perfectly fine.
SHAUN: I find it strange how often we (and other film critics) note the budgetary limitations of a film even when we’re saying that it isn’t a problem. Nearly every review I’ve read of this film notes its visible budgetary limits, but I think a part of that comes with the expectations of science fiction set by films with substantially larger budgets by default rather than the expectations of lower budget films, of which there are many with remarkably good cinematography, acting, etc. One of my favorite horror films of all time is David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows (2014), which was reportedly made for $1.3mil, and it features astonishingly good cinematography, storytelling, and pretty solid performances across the board. I suspect that Voidance was made on a tighter budget given the set limitations, but if we’re overly focused on sets and visuals, then there’s something else going on which is leading us to this focus point.
On that front, I’ll say two things:
- The central premise of an agent for a government (positioned initially as benevolent) entering her final test via a detailed simulation is an interesting approach to the “time loop” narrative. While it certainly drags in several points, especially when repeat iterations seem to offer little new information or meaning for the viewer, the film still teases out a couple of compelling ideas, such as the notion that pre-existing biases affect how one approaches a mystery or how biases imposed upon you that you don’t even know about (yet) can force one to seek answers to that mystery which are morally questionable. Certainly, the film struggles to get these ideas across at times (for reasons I’ll note in 2), and that may be one area which pulls viewers out of the immersion of the story to look at the skin and clothes it is wearing. A greater commitment to those ideas would almost certainly boost this film’s profile.
- I found it hard to understand Alana (Zoe Cunningham) as a character, as she behaves in ways that didn’t seem consistent with someone who is meant to serve as some kind of agentic enforcer for a culture’s government (ATIC). Part of this, I think, is in Cunningham’s performance, which I found awkward and stilted for much of the film. She seems perpetually confused, pauses at odd moments to overemphasize that confusion, and behaves less like a detective of the future and more like a Columbo without the intentional Magoo-ness. Isn’t she supposed to be prepared for this sort of thing? This is her final test, after all, yet I came away thinking that either ATIC is particular dysfunctional or I was missing something.
As for your note about this being a simulation: I also didn’t grok that fact right away, but I think that was somewhat deliberate. Maybe the film was more obvious than I remember. However, if not, then I’m happier for it, as I think mystery plots are more interesting when they give the viewer the chance to figure things out on their own.
DANIEL: The minimalism of the production and setting in this does result in a fair amount of ambiguity within the film and its characters. I think this is largely intentional, allowing for open-ended viewer interpretations. Though as executed it does make certain things difficult to understand, such as the character of Alana, as you say. Even by the end of the movie, it is ambiguous what Alana’s beliefs are now and how she is aligned or not aligned with ATIC. Is she an agent, a double-agent, an agent pretending to be a double agent, etc.? We never get any true insight into her mind or her background. We only see her actions and indirectly her thoughts of trying to piece together the simulation and the political contexts involved.
And that gets me to the other big ambiguity I found here, the simulation. This is an ATIC simulation, though it provides characters and perspectives that seem designed to promote sympathy for this intergalactic empire’s enemies. This must be intentional, right? To test the prospective agents and their decisions, how they choose to take those perspectives and act upon them. But also it begs the question of how accurate any of the simulation is.
We have essentially here a space opera story as the foundational ‘backstory’ of this plot, a tale of empire and resistance in space, which is loaded with genre history and audience assumptions/expectations. But we never really get any true details of that big picture view. And that’s what I find most interesting about Voidance and why the idea of it being a low budget film with limited plot and set is so central to discussion of it. The makers choose to take this genre of SF set upon a grandiose stage and narrow things down to one agent alone in a simulated version of the supposed political realities they are going to dedicate their life and career to. Like them, we the audience are really in the dark, not understanding what they signed up for. It’s a very unconventional way of portraying this kind of space opera SF backdrop, really only as a hazy backdrop of uncertainty for all.
SHAUN: I don’t think there’s as much ambiguity in the ending as you suggest here given the last scene we are shown. Instead, the film seems to mostly “suggest” a larger change for Alana’s beliefs than commit to it, which is certainly consistent with the plot of the movie (it’s a mystery, not an anti-imperial redemption tale). That’s fine. However, if the write (Simon X. Frederick) and director (Marianna Dean) get a chance to revisit this world, I hope they’ll commit to that type of story without the space opera trappings that would distract from a more subtle and meaningful message about allegiances, modes of control, resistance, etc. I’d like to see something more along the lines of Andor than original Star Wars.
As for the confusing nature of the simulation itself, I came away thinking that ATIC is like many so-called benevolent empires: it’s so sure of itself that it cannot understand its own opposition as anything other than a problem that must be eradicated. Of course, we can figure out immediately why this might make ATIC’s goal of bringing more worlds/systems/habitats under its control. Failing to understand your opposition — to sympathize with them even if you don’t agree with their beliefs — is a recipe for disaster beyond and within your borders. Again, this is an idea the film mostly teases. I’m glad it’s there, but I think fewer repetitions of the simulation in exchange for more development of the worldbuilding around ATIC through Alana’s interactions with Agent Polo (Cosmo) and the various factions within the simulation itself would add a powerful layer to this story.
I’m being a little too critical here for my taste, so I want to turn this a bit. I *like* the world that is suggested here. I especially like the sequences between Alana and Ede (Eloise Lovell Anderson), in which Alana’s views of an organization identified as terroristic by Agent Polo are roundly challenged with an affect that Polo never provides. By comparison, Cosmo’s Polo is more like a computer simulation than a real person while Anderson’s Ede is almost completely the opposite. This again raises for me the idea that ATIC is completely detached from the people they are supposedly “helping,” so much so that it can’t even recognize that its own training simulations (albeit, obviously using real people and situations as models) are more human than its own enforcement arm. Empire dehumanizes everyone, including its agents.
DANIEL: I had the most fun with this seeing the “time loop” experience of Alana trying to figure out what these people on the station were up to, who were the terrorists and threats, and how can she stop people from dying. Here I think the filmmakers did a good job with the editing, taking some iterations slowly, particularly as she attempted a new action or visited a new room and encountered new characters. Other iterations that were more direct repeats had quicker cuts that also showed her character’s frustration with not being able to achieve what she was trying.
I also appreciated how the simulation takes Alana’s advantage of time and being to replay the scenario and negates it by preying on her limitation of space, not being able to be in two places at once. Turns out this mission is more complex and challenging than expected. Seeing her troubleshooting process and experiments to overcome this was particular fun.
And I still think that last scene has more ambiguity in it. But like Alana, I’d also have to go back to this whole thing again to look for more clues and impressions.
SHAUN: At the end of the day, this is an interesting but flawed film. It’s the kind of film that, for me, doesn’t quite get there but reveals enough potential that I actively want to see the people behind it do something else with just a little bit more support behind them. Voidance isn’t trying to change cinema. It’s trying to have a bit of fun with a familiar premise while tossing a few sprinkles of meaty ideas on top. Could it be more? Absolutely. Let’s hope we get to see that more in a future work by these same creators.
DANIEL: Completely agree.
Voidance is available now streaming, and is currently also screening in UK cinemas. Check it out.
