Anyone who grew up watching Turner Classic Movies has had a crush on an old Hollywood icon. Maybe Cary Grant did it for you, or Grace Kelly. Maybe you went for Marlon Brando or Ingrid Bergman. No matter your taste, Black Mirror‘s latest season features an episode you absolutely cannot miss.
“Hotel Reverie” puts an AI-twist on Casablanca with Awkwafina as Kimmy, a rep for tech company ReDream, whose software can “recast” classic films with contemporary actors. She pitches the head of struggling studio Keyworth Pictures and convinces her to recreate their legacy hit the episode is named for.
Netflix
Meanwhile Issa Rae plays established actress Brandy Friday, who is trying to break free of the typecasting boxes she is currently confined to. She longs for roles with more agency, where she can pursue an object of affection, instead of just playing one. After ReDream and Keyworth are unable to secure Ryan Reynolds or Gosling for their project, they agree to rewrite the main male lead role for Brandy.
However, she shows up to the shoot having missed the memo on how ReDream works. This will not be a typical film production. Instead, Brandy will be hooked up to a computer that will recreate the film as an interactive virtual experience that will feel like real life to Brandy. She is simply tasked with performing her lines alongside AI reproductions of the characters during the run-time of the film. It’s an amazingly whimsical concept from Black Mirror show runners – who wouldn’t want to step into their favorite film and literally live it themselves?
Issa Rae in “Hotel Reverie”
Emma Corrin is wonderful as both starlet Dorothy Chambers and her AI counterpart, absolutely nailing the film era’s transatlantic accent. The episode’s writing structure combines flashbacks of the actual Dorothy, clips of her original film performance, YouTube videos of screen tests, and her AI counterpart’s experience within the virtual reconstruction of the film.
Every time Brandy veers slightly from the original beats of the film, the AI characters respond accordingly. As things quickly slide out of control, she accidentally calls Corrin’s AI “Dorothy” instead of her character’s name, Clara, triggering a heightened sense of self-awareness and agency in her programming. Brandy does her best to get things back on track with coaching from the ReDream team, attempting to romance AI Dorothy/Clara in order to keep the plot moving forward.
Awkwafina in “Hotel Reverie”
Their chemistry is palpable, and Dorothy/Clara responds positively to all of Brandy’s modern interjections that create era incongruent mishaps. When the two finally kiss, the real-world onlookers are stunned, with Judith Keyworth quipping that the original was nowhere near as passionate. It gets everyone so hot under the collar that a programmer accidentally spills his coffee all over his computer, prompting a massive misfunction in the program. Kimmy confirms that if the team can’t fix this soon, Brandy consciousness risks being trapped there virtually, along with death in the real world.
The beauty of this episode lies in what happens next. All of the characters except for Brandy and AI Dorothy/Clara are frozen, and Brandy spills the beans about what their surroundings really are, and who/what her AI companion really is. Completely stunned, Clara temporarily “exits” the faux set, and steps into a black void representing the source code of the program, where she accesses memories from the actual Dorothy Chambers, who is revealed to be a queer woman who committed suicide after enduring harsh criticism and speculation from the media.
All of this is communicated in a montage. Without any audible dialogue Corrin and co-actors rely on a series of masterful micro-expressions to tell Dorothy’s heartbreaking story, which we understand to be “real” from the switch to color from the film construct’s black and white. In less than two minutes, we see a full-blown story arc akin to Taylor Jenkin’s Reed’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo play out with a tragic ending.
This newly self-aware AI, who now identifies as Dorothy, rejoins Brandy on the virtual set, and the two experience time much more rapidly than their real world counterparts. Days turn into weeks, then months, and the two fall in love over the course of another exquisite montage which is brutally interrupted by the ReDream team. Brandy is ripped away from Dorothy’s loving embrace as the programming resets the scene and wipes the AI’s memory. I haven’t been this devastated by a storyline since I first saw Somewhere In Time.
Issa Rae and Emma Corrin in “Hotel Reverie”
Brandy must carry on with her performance, which is now tinged with personal despair, and while the Clara character is no longer aware of what transpired between the two, the chemistry remains as an inexplicable pull that triggers a complete rewrite to the film’s ending. Brandy is willing to be trapped in the program forever, taking the blame when Clara shoots the husband who has been plotting to murder her, but Clara refuses, and is killed in an exchange with police.
It’s a devastating treatise on technology’s hypothetical potential to create an identity from the online meta-data of a human experience, and even fall in love. It doesn’t have the same dystopian outlook as films like Her or Ex Machina, ending on a bittersweet note that shows Brandy safely removed from the construct, at home with a phone set-up that allows her to communicate with the version of Dorothy from the earlier YouTube clip.
Completely emotionally destroyed, I won’t be able to make it to episode four before giving this one a rewatch.
Watch On Netflix
“Hotel Reverie” puts an AI-twist on Casablanca with Awkwafina as Kimmy, a rep for tech company ReDream, whose software can “recast” classic films with contemporary actors. She pitches the head of struggling studio Keyworth Pictures and convinces her to recreate their legacy hit the episode is named for.
Netflix
Meanwhile Issa Rae plays established actress Brandy Friday, who is trying to break free of the typecasting boxes she is currently confined to. She longs for roles with more agency, where she can pursue an object of affection, instead of just playing one. After ReDream and Keyworth are unable to secure Ryan Reynolds or Gosling for their project, they agree to rewrite the main male lead role for Brandy.
However, she shows up to the shoot having missed the memo on how ReDream works. This will not be a typical film production. Instead, Brandy will be hooked up to a computer that will recreate the film as an interactive virtual experience that will feel like real life to Brandy. She is simply tasked with performing her lines alongside AI reproductions of the characters during the run-time of the film. It’s an amazingly whimsical concept from Black Mirror show runners – who wouldn’t want to step into their favorite film and literally live it themselves?
Issa Rae in “Hotel Reverie”
Emma Corrin is wonderful as both starlet Dorothy Chambers and her AI counterpart, absolutely nailing the film era’s transatlantic accent. The episode’s writing structure combines flashbacks of the actual Dorothy, clips of her original film performance, YouTube videos of screen tests, and her AI counterpart’s experience within the virtual reconstruction of the film.
Every time Brandy veers slightly from the original beats of the film, the AI characters respond accordingly. As things quickly slide out of control, she accidentally calls Corrin’s AI “Dorothy” instead of her character’s name, Clara, triggering a heightened sense of self-awareness and agency in her programming. Brandy does her best to get things back on track with coaching from the ReDream team, attempting to romance AI Dorothy/Clara in order to keep the plot moving forward.
Awkwafina in “Hotel Reverie”
Their chemistry is palpable, and Dorothy/Clara responds positively to all of Brandy’s modern interjections that create era incongruent mishaps. When the two finally kiss, the real-world onlookers are stunned, with Judith Keyworth quipping that the original was nowhere near as passionate. It gets everyone so hot under the collar that a programmer accidentally spills his coffee all over his computer, prompting a massive misfunction in the program. Kimmy confirms that if the team can’t fix this soon, Brandy consciousness risks being trapped there virtually, along with death in the real world.
The beauty of this episode lies in what happens next. All of the characters except for Brandy and AI Dorothy/Clara are frozen, and Brandy spills the beans about what their surroundings really are, and who/what her AI companion really is. Completely stunned, Clara temporarily “exits” the faux set, and steps into a black void representing the source code of the program, where she accesses memories from the actual Dorothy Chambers, who is revealed to be a queer woman who committed suicide after enduring harsh criticism and speculation from the media.
All of this is communicated in a montage. Without any audible dialogue Corrin and co-actors rely on a series of masterful micro-expressions to tell Dorothy’s heartbreaking story, which we understand to be “real” from the switch to color from the film construct’s black and white. In less than two minutes, we see a full-blown story arc akin to Taylor Jenkin’s Reed’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo play out with a tragic ending.
This newly self-aware AI, who now identifies as Dorothy, rejoins Brandy on the virtual set, and the two experience time much more rapidly than their real world counterparts. Days turn into weeks, then months, and the two fall in love over the course of another exquisite montage which is brutally interrupted by the ReDream team. Brandy is ripped away from Dorothy’s loving embrace as the programming resets the scene and wipes the AI’s memory. I haven’t been this devastated by a storyline since I first saw Somewhere In Time.
Issa Rae and Emma Corrin in “Hotel Reverie”
Brandy must carry on with her performance, which is now tinged with personal despair, and while the Clara character is no longer aware of what transpired between the two, the chemistry remains as an inexplicable pull that triggers a complete rewrite to the film’s ending. Brandy is willing to be trapped in the program forever, taking the blame when Clara shoots the husband who has been plotting to murder her, but Clara refuses, and is killed in an exchange with police.
It’s a devastating treatise on technology’s hypothetical potential to create an identity from the online meta-data of a human experience, and even fall in love. It doesn’t have the same dystopian outlook as films like Her or Ex Machina, ending on a bittersweet note that shows Brandy safely removed from the construct, at home with a phone set-up that allows her to communicate with the version of Dorothy from the earlier YouTube clip.
Completely emotionally destroyed, I won’t be able to make it to episode four before giving this one a rewatch.
Watch On Netflix