The Pod Generation

Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor do their best in Sophie Barthes’ soft satirical speculative fiction set in a not-so-distant future NYC where everyone sounds like a Brit trying to do an American accent. A new tech company now offers couples portable plastic artificial wombs in order for them to achieve gender parody in both pregnancy and their careers. Ejiofor's Alvy, a botanist devoted to outdated concepts like nature, is reluctant when his executive wife Rachel (Clarke) gets the opportunity through a recent promotion to take advantage of this latest trend in family planning. Barthes' screenplay and direction seem oddly incurious about all the interesting ramifications of her premise. The film always places the viewer at a removed distance, as if we're meant to sit in smug judgement of these silly people, rather than aligning us with the experience of the characters so that we wonder what we'd do in their situation.

Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor are a couple who take advantage of this latest trend in family planning in Sophie Barthes’ soft satirical speculative fiction.