455. Anon; movie review

ANON
Cert 15
98 mins

BBFC advice: Contains strong sex, nudity, violence, language, drug misuse

In 1993, AT & T gathered a group of experts and asked them to predict the future.
Twenty-five years later and their findings have been seen to be incredibly accurate so they were asked to take out their crystal balls again.
The forecast which troubled me the most was that we would no longer care where CCTV-style cameras would be because they would be literally everywhere.
I have long had pub discussions with folk who would not worry about the CCTV invasion because they have "nothing to hide".
But, as Amanda Seyfried's character in Anon says: "It's not that I have anything to hide. I just don't have anything I want you to see."
Seyfried plays the chief suspect in a series of murders during a future in which our memories can literally be played back by the police.

Indeed, individuals also have abilities to replay their own past and have abilities to call someone through thought and even send emails or produce passwords in a similar style.
Clive Owen plays a detective who has access to all areas and uses this to discover criminals or  exclude suspects.
It is believed that the system is foolproof because nobody exists outside of it.
That is until Seyfried's character has hacked her way around it, remaining anonymous as the body count mounts up.
I found Anon a compelling if overly-complicated thriller with Owen deliberately low key in the lead and Seyfried in enigmatic and even erotic form as his target.
I was so engaged with the science and what may become possible that I took my eye off a story weighed down by detail (pity the poor person who has to write the character profiles which whizz around the screen for most of the film).
Nevertheless, mention has to go to Andrew Niccol's imagination in showing us what the future may look like. It is scary but believable.

Reasons to watch: Unusual futuristic drama
Reasons to avoid: The constant flashes of information across screen make it stodgy

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: Yes
Overall rating: 7/10

Director quote - Andrew Niccol: "One of the things I was interested in exploring is how there was no war for our privacy. We just said, ‘It’s cool.’ For convenience, it’s all yours. Right now you and I are geo-tagging. People know exactly where we are. "

The big question - Will the future really look like this?

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