[yasr_overall_rating]
The story of a lonely writer who learns what it is to be human by interacting with a machine known as the Emotional Motor Unit.
The plot of this sci-fi drama follows a lonely and entirely average fifty-something-year-old individual who lives in an alternate dimension-like, futuristic setting wherein he has no personal relationships whatsoever. His lifestyle in the rather empty and pessimistic world consists solely of sleeping, taking anti-emotion pills, and going to work; but all that changes when he is promoted from a non-fiction writer to fiction author. Provided with an EMU, or Emotional Motor Unit, he is told to refrain from his pills so that he may experience emotion through his interaction with the unit – but only just enough to author a story. As the days goes by, the protagonist leaves behind his anti-feelings pills to experience nature and humanity like a real human being would, which is, oddly enough, introduced to him by the EMU.
After the unit is taken away, the little “contact” he had received from his relationship with her becomes too much to handle on his own. A withdrawal ensues, causing a meltdown, but he refuses to forget what he had with her by taking withdrawal-curbing pills he’d been given. He pushes through the tough time regardless of the storm inside him, and finishes the work of fiction he was assigned to do. The truth of the matter was that the woman he’d fallen for was fictional herself, and she had achieved her purpose before becoming a mere memory, just as most fiction does.
The concept of this short is fairly simple, and so is the straightforward execution. However, there is so much depth in every detail, frame, and sentence, that the work becomes spectacular. Among the countless sci-fi short films that exist, “Emotional Motor Unit” stands out because it conveys significant basic truths about humans, nature, and the nature of human emotion: we distance ourselves from emotions when we fear their impact on us; we get too attached to things that are not real; and when we have to plant our feet back onto the ground again, we move on, but never completely forget. As a study of humanity through the lens of science fiction, “Emotional Motor Unit” excels by leaps and bounds beyond many other similar efforts.
The acting is as close to perfect as can be as well, with each character being the epitome of their role and purpose. The protagonist, specifically, played by Graham Cawte, shines as a dull, lifeless, and lonely man who becomes attuned to feeling (perhaps too much) after experiencing the closest thing to human contact–and quite frankly, a familial environment–that he could – albeit that person is an A.I. machine. As for direction and screenplay–mastered respectively by Adam Nelson and Xènia Puiggrós–they are both exemplary. All in all, “Emotional Motor Unit” is the sort of powerful film that has the ability to make other efforts in the genre seem lacking.
