Down on his luck guy gets sucked into testing a new AI BDSM sex doll for his friend that will ultimately be used to help people who are domestic abusers. Of course things go sideways.
I went into BLACK EYED SUSAN with a lot of expectations. There were warnings that the film was going to push buttons and other things. I came out wondering what the fuss was about.
Yes, the opening sequence is disorienting. It's a stilted meeting between Susan, the doll, and a tester, the sequence is done like really bad stereotypical rough porn, it leaves us not certain what we are seeing or where this is going to go. However, as the interaction ends the film shifts into something more conventional. Sure, the story travels along with something occasionally "shocking", Unfortunately the shocking revelations aren't all that shocking, and after a while the film becomes a romance between man and machine
What surprised me was that outside of the opening sequence this wasn't a particularly disturbing. Yes, some of Susan's graphic sex talk is uncomfortable but it's more due to her flat machine like delivery than anything that's said or that we see. Story-wise we have been here before, if not in science fiction films (ARTIFICE GIRL, which covers very similar ground) then in science documentaries (SOPHIA) which show us some scary things about where we are with AI and what people want to do with it.
For me the problem with the film is that only towards the end the film finally really takes up the question about if we build bots to give to offenders who abuse, what does that say about society if we de facto condone the bad behavior? Are we monsters too? The ultimate goal of the project, which when revealed to the testers breaks them, was obvious from the start. That it's left dangling until the end, and barely dealt with weakens the film. The climax isn't all that powerful.
While far from being a bad film, I'd have given it a 7 out of 10 instead of a 6 if it wasn't so familiar and handled the themes better, the film suffers in that it doesn't really end satisfyingly. I would have taken something less artificially happy over the one we get. (Though to be fair I don't know how you would have ended this so that it worked.)
Worth a look for curious adults.
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