An unreconciled tension of recent years is
between the creepy intrusiveness and phenomenal convenience of our technology.
From social media to smart phones to the burgeoning concept of "the
internet of things," we're increasingly willing to ignore the vast amount
of data and privacy we're sacrificing all in the name of having convenience and
efficiencies we never knew we needed. I certainly don't exempt myself from this
equation, seeing as I'm typing this on an Apple computer with Microsoft Word
and posting these thoughts online under my own name for all to Google. It's a
concept that we're just now wrestling with, but this tension of intrusive
convenience as it relates to modern lives had an early, perhaps partially
accidental, dramatization in Smart House,
a 1999 Disney Channel Original Movie directed by none other than beloved TV
actor LeVar Reading Rainbow, Roots, Star Trek: The Next Generation Burton?
Sci-fi as a genre has made much of these themes for decades,
but surely Smart House is one of the
first to get at the unthinking speed with which the average person will dismiss
concerns about new technology when confronted with unimagined innovation promising
comprehensive convenience. The Coopers, a single father (Kevin Kliner) with two
kids, Ben (Ryan Merriman) and Angie (Katie Volding, also the little sister in Brink!), win a contest to live in
"Smart House." The scientist (Jessica Steen) who heads the project
gives them the grand tour of the features. The house comes outfitted with PAT, a
personal applied technology that will learn about the inhabitants and adjust
settings to their liking. It can ascertain your entire medical history with a
drop of blood and chart your diet with built in breathalyzers. There are video
screens for walls, self-vacuuming floors, and a kitchen that cooks for you, all
run through an artificial intelligence that interacts with a chipper, maternal
voice (Katey Sagal, the same year she started playing Leela on Futurama). Take that, Siri. The father's
first reaction is to mention that it all seems a little creepy. But by the next
scene they're moving in.
This is undeniably a goofy techno-paranoia parable with a
distinctly late-90's vision of the future of high tech. There's a lot of
obvious green screen work, fakey CG effects, and computer displays that can do
just about anything with a handful of clattering keystrokes. An example of the
movie's uniquely late-90's perspective happens early on when the scientist
calls the winning family, but gets a busy signal because the son is still
online, hogging the phone line, having fallen asleep while repeatedly entering
the contest. But for all the silly surface detail, the movie isn't interested
in exploring the smart house as much as it is using the house as a means of the
son working out trauma over the death of his mother a few years before the
movie's start.
It's quickly apparent that the boy is jealously guarding his
family's status quo, working overtime to make sure he gets his sister doing her
homework and dinner is on the table by the time dad gets home. An early scene
shows him answering the phone, hearing a prospective date for his father on the
other end of the line, and then purposely not passing the message along. When
questioned, he tells his father that she didn't sound like his type anyway.
He's living with a fear that his dad will invite a new mom into their lives.
But he can't even bring himself to imagine the possibility when the empty space
left by his mother's death still looms so large in his psyche. A sentimental
scene midway through the picture finds the boy watching a home video of his mom
that the house has helpfully projected on his bedroom wall. As tears run down his
face, the sounds of his mother singing fill the room. It's a blunt force blow
to the emotions, manipulative and effective.
Smart House is at
its best when it’s poking around in this emotional rawness, or simply relaxing
into simple teen anxieties as filtered through their techno-domicile. The dad,
who is sweet on the scientist who in turn has eyes for him, invites her over
for dinner as part of a nicely underplayed romantic subplot. Dinner
conversation is largely about the house. "Does she follow me into the
shower, too?" the boy nervously asks. Upon hearing the answer is no, he
sighs, "That's a relief!" It's a small, funny touch of embarrassment
that rings somewhat truthful of actual adolescent experience. That his
character's anxieties about burgeoning changes - along with the aforementioned lingering
mourning - lead directly to the main technological breakdown of the house is a
nice touch in otherwise simple script by William Hudson and Stu Krieger (the latter also wrote Zenon). The
son's the one who uploads a data dump of sitcom moms into the house's code,
leading her to turn eventually into a cheery simulacrum of maternity, a
monstrously exaggerated mother who turns quippy, overzealous, and eventually a
hostage taker. "Mother knows best!" she happily roars, materializing
as a 50's housewife of a hologram in the living room.
The movie's basically a cheesy mild sci-fi goof, like a
motherly HAL 9000 crashing into a soft, amiable pre-teen sitcom. For every
scene that gets near emotional truths it pivots into, say, an overly
choreographed house party complete with pounding pop provided by an 'N Sync sound-alike
band. (A total late-90's touch is the way teens show up to the party with their
invitation emails printed out.) The way the plot eventually resolves its
tensions is easy and almost hilarious in its deflating nature. The movie has
neither the budget nor inclination to truly wrestle with its interests be they
technical or emotional. It may accidentally end up saying that technology
solves all and provides all, except when it comes to humans’ emotional needs.
It’s an accidentally perceptive kids’ movie in which the main conflict is about
a boy’s emotional development and the silly tech traumas only follow.
Up next: Johnny Tsunami
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