A Million Days (2023)Hard Sci-Fi or Hardly Sci-Fi?(Review)

Artificial Intelligence is a concept as old as science fiction itself, and for much of that history it wasn’t the practical (if weird and problematic) tool that we know today. It was instead manifested as something that threatened humanity, and you need look no further than some classic examples like Terminator‘s Skynet, Metropolis‘ Maria, or Ghost In The Shell‘s Puppet Master. There have been several hopeful and philosophical titles (like Her, Robot & Frank, and even Bicentennial Man), that serve as a counter to the idea that “A.I. is going to kill us all”, and with the recent availability of a practical version of A.I. that can be used by the average person on the street, old perceptions within narrative media are shifting. Two great examples of this open-mindedness appeared in the last two years, the first being Franklin Ritch’s 2022 movie The Artifice Girl, and the second (out now on VOD courtesy of Signature Entertainment) is Mitch Jenkins’ A Million Days – both of which, funnily enough, played at the Glasgow Film Festival. 

A Million Days is set in a near future, the day before one of the core characters is set to join the mission to colonise other planets and moons is launched, otherwise known as Seed. An A.I. called Jay has presented a mass of new information to astronaut Anderson (Simon Merrells), and engineers Sam (Kemi-Bo Jacobs), and Charlie (Hermione Corfield), but as it’s far more data than they would ever need, leaving them to ponder if JAY was simply trying to be helpful, or if the security of the mission has been compromised. While this is not a malicious iteration of science fiction A.I., it’s a version whose idea of a good time is to “doom scroll” through social media given the severity of the predictions found in this wealth of data, and JAY consistently breaks the limitations of (her) own code in order to achieve Seed’s goals.

There’s a lot to consider as A Million Days‘ contained narrative develops, with Anderson, Sam and Charlie contemplating whether to pursue their life’s work, or sabotage it for a greater cause. There’s also the question of JAY’s responsibility in a fatal accident early in the film – as revealed by a visiting Gene (Darrell D’Silva), as well as its repeated attempts to commandeer a “body” using nanomachines, manipulation, and incrementally threatening pushes that go beyond its programming boundaries.

Calling A Million Days an intentionally dense, “hard” sci-fi would be like saying water is wet, but it does present a number of concepts to ponder, from the future of the human race and travelling beyond the stars, to the power of AI in decision making and technological development. There are also several big picture questions to be considered like “What will happen to the human race in the centuries to come?”, “How fragile is the planet we call home in a volatile universe?” and “In the age of hyper-science, what it is a god?”

In a now deleted interview with the Radio Times back in 2015, Simon Pegg accused sci-fi and genre films of being filled with childish spectacles, but after much criticism he later clarified his statements on his personal blog. The sentiment that science fiction cinema should be more than mindless computer-generated spectacle, that it should also be about ideas and asking questions, is something I can understand, and I can confirm that A Million Days is exactly the sort of thing Simon Pegg and many hard sci-fi fans will always pine for.

Now that the omnipotent and monolithic twofer of Marvel and Star Wars are unwillingly relinquishing their grip on science fiction cinema, there’s more room for refreshingly different brands of storytelling, and richer, which includes more diverse interpretations of what A.I. as a character can be. Unfortunately, extricating sci-fi cinema from blockbuster cinema is a funny process, and it can be hard to think of a movie that takes place within one house (albeit a lavish one), as science fiction – especially when there are minimal computer-generated effects. It’s for this very reason that so many lazy corners of criticism will throw around dismissive barbs like “This feels like an episode of Black Mirror“, but I think it’s more significant than that. The shrinking of spectacle allows smaller movies from different perspectives to be produced, and the genre to become a richer place – which is something that happened to horror, giving the macabre a much richer field to play in, so maybe now it’s the turn of science fiction too.

Even though A Million Days looks like a small film that mainly takes place in one house, it’s an ambitious movie with a story that spans the deepest reaches of the galaxy. The cinematography and production design have been focused to such a micro degree that every bit of technology feels well considered – like the use of vinyl records in a world where 3D printing has been elevated to an Nth degree of pragtamism. In the scenes outside where the characters look for Anderson’s dog, the colour correction hints at a scorched sky barely a stone’s throw away from a base that launches numerous satellites during the night. Using colour correction and cinematography to tell the story is always impressive, as is the acting. For an 80-minute feature to focus so heavily on philosophical science fiction you need your cast and script to do an awful lot of heavy lifting, otherwise the movie risks becoming an interminable bore. Thankfully, while A Million Days doesn’t exactly do a great job of pulling in the everyman or come close to notions of accessible science fiction, it’s also a world away from boring.

Rob’s Archive – A Million Days (2023)