'A Glitch in the Matrix' is a mind-numbing exploration of a mind-blowing idea
Do you have a hankering for hazy 2 a.m. dorm room conversations about like, what even is reality, man and what if life is actually just one big dream? If so, A Glitch in the Matrix might be for you. Everyone else can probably keep moving. There's a fascinating movie to be made about simulation theory, but this isn't it.
What's frustrating is that, from time to time, it seems like it could have been. Director Rodney Ascher (Room 237) takes a broad view of simulation theory — the belief that the entirety of existence as we know it is a computer simulation, a la The Matrix. The film traces the idea all the way back to the days of Plato, ponders its similarities to (and differences from) more familiar religious traditions, and tries to work through some of its moral and philosophical implications.
It draws in thinkers like Nick Bostrom, the Swedish philosopher whose 2003 paper helped spread the idea; Chris Ware, the cartoonist behind Jimmy Corrigan; and Emily Posthast, an artist and historian. Ascher returns repeatedly to Philip K. Dick's 1977 speech detailing the theory — that, more so than the Wachowskis' Matrix movies, make up the real spine of the film. The film's anecdotes and theses are illustrated through primitive-looking CG models and clips of everything from Rick & Morty to The Wizard of Oz to Defending Your Life.
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There's a fascinating movie to be made about simulation theory, but this isn't it.
But its explorations of all those rabbit holes tend to be shallow. Ascher appears much more interested in chatting up a small handful of regular people who are extremely into this theory. They're granted anonymity in the form of outlandish computer-generated avatars, like a monster encased in an astronaut suit or a vaguely lion-ish form with the satiny sheen of a Christmas ornament. I can only guess they're meant as a playful reminder to the viewer to let go of our assumptions about what counts as real or doesn't. But they also have the effect of presenting these people as kooks not worth taking seriously, and very little of what they have to say disproves that impression.
These guys (and they are all guys, as far as it's possible to tell; Posthast is the only female interview subject in the whole film) talk at length about their formative childhood experiences and the supposedly crazy coincidences they've encountered that could only be explained by the theory. In all cases, the anecdotes raise the same questions: That's it? That's your mind-blowing evidence that the theory is real? That you thought about an orange fish and then you saw a sign with an orange fish on it? A more skeptical interviewer might have pressed these subjects harder, pushed back with alternate theories or encouraged them to look harder into their own psychologies. But Ascher is apparently happy to just to listen to them ramble.
Only very late in the film does A Glitch in the Matrix really try to grapple with the darkest, most toxic extensions of this theory, in the form of an in-depth interview with Joshua Cooke, a Matrix obsessive who killed his parents in 2003. His story is horrifying, heartbreaking stuff, and it's apparently intended to serve in the film as an example of the worst outcomes of assuming that other humans aren't real. But Cooke himself gives the impression that the murders were less about an over-enthusiastic belief in simulation theory than the consequence of much more mundane horrors, like the abuse he was subjected to at home, the bullying he got at school, and the undiagnosed mental illness he struggled with throughout.
So why does A Glitch in the Matrix spend so much time relaying pointless anecdotes from random people, and so little exploring why these people are so fixated on this theory in the first place? Why does it only glancingly touch upon the theory's interactions with religion or masculinity or mental health? Why doesn't it spend more time getting into the implications it has for society? In The Matrix, a pre-red pill Neo spends his days frustrated by the feeling that there's something not quite right, that some deeper, more meaningful truth sits just out of his grasp. After watching A Glitch in the Matrix, I feel the same way.
A Glitch in the Matrix premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It opens in theaters and on demand Friday, Feb. 5.
