The series "Developed" from Alex Garland: nothing is clear, but it is impossible to tear yourself away

The streaming service Hulu launched the Devs miniseries (translated as "Developed"), which was invented and directed by one of the most unconventional authors of recent years, Alex Garland. Initially, he became famous for the book "The Beach", according to which Danny Boyle shot the film of the same name. Garland then wrote the screenplay for 28 Days Later. And a little later he began directing films himself, and always according to his own script.

Garland's films "Out of the Machine" and "Annihilation" turned out to be very difficult. In fantastic stories, the director combined sociality, science and philosophy, forcing the viewer to independently answer many questions.

Ambiguity in Garland's work has always come first.

And "Developed" 100% continues the traditional style of this director: here he still does not even try to simplify the plot to please unprepared viewers. Garland is once again mixing drama, fiction and science, and the serial format allows you to slow down and confuse the action even more. And as a result, the very atmosphere of the "Razrabov" sometimes becomes very disturbing.

It all starts with a crime drama

The plot revolves around Lily Chan (Sonoya Mizuno), who works with her boyfriend Sergei (Karl Glusman) at the Amaya technology company. Moreover, he is developing an algorithm that can predict the behavior of the worm for a few seconds ahead.

At a certain moment, the head of the Forest company (Nick Offerman) decides to raise Sergei and invites him to a secret unit, whose members are called "developed".

Further, perhaps, you should not tell the details of the plot, since almost any little thing can turn out to be a spoiler and spoil the viewing experience. We can only mention that Sergei disappears. And Lily is trying to figure out what happened.

Moreover, at first it may seem that this story is quite simple and tied only to crime. The introduction even hints that one should not wait for a full-fledged detective: everything that happened is directly shown to the viewer. However, every minute the action gets more and more confusing. Out of nowhere other confirmed versions of events appear, unexpected sides of Sergei's life are revealed.

And by the end of the second episode, it becomes clear that "Developers" do not plan to keep within the framework of a linear narrative.

The plot over and over again deceives the viewer, leaning now towards the drama, now towards the spy thriller, and makes you watch very carefully, keeping all the little things in your head.

More importantly, it is simply impossible to guess where the plot will go next.

Then fiction and philosophy come to the fore

From the very beginning, Garland again swings at global themes at the intersection of science and fiction. Moreover, he goes into fiction even further than the creators of "Black Mirror", but at the same time he tries to adhere to questions that are quite real for scientists.

Before viewing, of course, it is not necessary to know the de Broglie - Bohm theory in detail, but at least superficial information about determinism will be very useful.

Moreover, one should not hope that Garland, going into fiction, will simply present some kind of fictional world with its own laws or make a futuristic society part of a social connotation, as in Black Mirror.

He is trying to show a much more complex model, where scientific developments go side by side with the "game of God", and at the same time asks questions about responsibility for their actions.

Is there free will? Or is everything that each person does - the result of many reasons that did not depend on him? Viewers will have to answer on their own.

Yes, that sounds confusing enough. And it looks even more complicated, because Garland does not just give out philosophical and scientific theories, he directly connects them with the emotions of the characters and the empathy of the viewer.

And also horror and paranoia

Garland's paintings have always been distinguished by deliberate slowness of the narrative. But this is not because of a lack of a plot part, but in order to immerse the viewer in the very atmosphere of what is happening. And for all the scientific nature and abundance of philosophy, his stories are always very emotional, and sometimes terribly frightening. Those who remember "Annihilation", which combined the personal drama of the heroine and the appearance of the "bear", which gives a hundred points ahead of any horror, will understand exactly what it is about.

From the same film, it seems that the scene with the viewing of the video in the second episode migrated to the series. This is again the most severe test for the heroine, and Garland manages to make the audience literally feel this horror. Despite the fact that he does not leave in unnecessarily rough and unpleasant moments: the very setting of the frame, the sound and the whipping up of the atmosphere just work.

The action, which begins as an emotional drama about the search for truth, gradually takes on an almost paranoid connotation.

Lily's loss is felt literally in every scene when she sits alone for a long time. And even her conversation with her mother seems creepy, because the voice of the interlocutor is not heard and it seems that the girl is communicating with emptiness.

But the most frightening figure is Forest. Offerman's performance in this series was praised by many critics for a reason. The head of a large company, who has given up luxury, appears now as a crazy genius, now as a villain, now as a completely lost person. And Forest's insane look makes the hero believe.

His motivation seems to be traced in separate phrases, and one can guess about the root causes of the project he started. And they add even more personal drama to the story. Although all this can also turn out to be another deception.

And at the same time, there is a special aesthetics in each frame

And of course, we must not forget that Alex Garland is appreciated by many for the beauty of the shooting. The chamber film "Out of the Machine" presented an incredible android aesthetics bordering on eroticism. And not the most expensive special effects of "Annihilation" were presented very gracefully - especially the moment the flowers sprout through the body.

With the opportunity to film a story of not two, but eight hours (each episode is more than 50 minutes long), Garland decided to let viewers fully enjoy the visual presentation.

The introduction to the first episode lasts almost two minutes, and this is just music and beautiful footage. And then the audience is shown a huge and creepy statue of a child and an absolutely fantastic room where members of the secret unit work.

When showing the heroes, the camera captures a close-up of their faces for a long time (and in the case of Offerman, this gets an almost religious connotation). And then, on the contrary, he shows the characters very small in the oppressive surrounding space.

And the general plans, accompanied by ambient, are almost a meditative sight. Perhaps this is again a hint that the world is much more than people can realize. Even those who decided to challenge the laws of the universe. Or maybe just beautiful shots for aesthetic enjoyment. After all, this is also necessary.

It is likely that "Developed" will seem too slow and complicated to an unprepared viewer. But fans of previous works by Alex Garland will definitely be satisfied with what they saw.

Moreover, a separate plus of the series is that the author decided to personally film the entire season, which means that the style will not change in the future. The director did not even try to present the story in the serial structure, and put more events in each episode. He created an eight-hour film. And in this regard, I even want to compare him with David Lynch, only from the world of technology. The same ambiguity, beauty of the filming and many questions that the audience must figure out for themselves.