Written by: Sophie Barthes
Starring: Emilia Clarke, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rosalie Craig, Vinette Robinson, Jean-Marc Barr
Rating: [2/5]
Technological advances continue in their pursuits to make the human physical experience a bit easier by moving elements of risk away and allowing machines to take care of it. With the way reproductive advances have progressed, it would come as no surprise to have the future set in The Pod Generation where we move away from women actually birthing children but rather in these perfect pods. While the film brings up this fascinating premise, the way it goes about its story makes something so intriguing incredibly dull.
Still not on the same page regarding their desire to have a child, Rachel (Emilia Clarke) and Alvy (Chiwetel Ejiofor) learn about this new method of bearing a child where a company puts the fetus into a pod outside the woman’s body. Without Alvy knowing, Rachel puts them on the waitlist to participate and the couple gets selected to participate, which presents some complications.
Like many well-intentioned but bad science-fiction films, The Pod Generation comes in with a fun idea but fails to build upon what initially makes it compelling to follow. It presents a failure in creating captivating characters to follow as we navigate this situation they have found themselves, leaving the premise itself to carry all the intrigue. This part, at the very least, allows for a larger discussion about what it means to carry and child and bring them into this world.
As previously mentioned, technological advances want to make the human experience easier, and they have with activities that generally pose a physical danger to mortals. Considering the difficulties in pregnancy and maternal death rates, sparing women from the danger bearing a child can pose appears like a victory. This then raises major questions about what a child loses when not physically connected to their mother during the pregnancy stage, and how these companies offering these services could artificially create something that closely imitates it. The film does go through these details and this natural versus artificial discussion hits right at the core of Rachel and Alvy as they sit on different sides of it. As shown in the film, Alvy believes in natural things as seen by his collection of plants, while Rachel becomes fixated with the idea of having this child.
Elements of handling this pod does bring some comedy, especially in the way Alvy and Rachel need to handle it, the visitation they can have with it, and the general awkwardness of becoming parents while ultimately not doing the physical and emotional labor that comes with pregnancy. If anything, this film consistently displays what makes this artificial experience so strange and unnatural. Given this film takes place in the early stages of this being accessible to the public reminds the audience of its newness and how society in general looks upon this practice.
As much as the idea of the pods can add to the entertainment value of a film, in the end we need to have a connection to these characters and this film really struggles in making Rachel and Alvy intriguing in anything other than their relation to the premise of these pods. They have this blandness to them that should not really exist considering we have Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor portraying them, but everything about their performances as utterly bland and devoid of any charisma. It makes following them throughout the process quite the chore and certainly does not benefit the story trying to engross us in this experience. Ejiofor and Clarke typically are not picking the best projects as of late, and this one certainly sits in the category of a miss for them.
Within this sterile and lifeless world, we receive an interesting idea matched up with a completely antiseptic core. Devoid of any messiness or intrigue, this feature proves far too enamored with the technology involved to dive deeper into these characters and make something wholly engaging. It leaves this emptiness to the experience that leaves us detached from the characters in this journey of them trying to figure out how to handle this different way of bringing a child into this world. Given we are not far along as a society from this existing, this premise deserves another opportunity for someone to dive much deeper, but unfortunately we did not receive that with this film.
Films with Josh 
