Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Bennet De Brabandere
Starring: Ksenia Solo, Nolan Gerard Funk, Zion Forrest Lee
Bring on the sex bots, I say. The more morphologically attractive and physiologically compliant the better, too. And look, I'm well aware of the cautionary tales offered by recent fare such as the excellent and sorely overlooked Companion along with more time-honoured texts such as Westworld (of course you would make one to look exactly like Thandiwe Newton: the world's most beautiful human being) and seemingly every episode of Black Mirror. But that is science fiction: we live in grim reality. They call it a male loneliness epidemic; I say it's an inevitable consequence of a recalibrated gender politic and the subsequent inability of some very very very very very sad little shits who cannot cope with an actuality which in no way corresponds with the tasteless and laughable fantasies they harbour about what a woman should be. What's more (because there is no bigger cry baby than the average straight man), they don't shut up about it either - whining about Chads online, instructing Grok to put her in a bikini (the cringe of it), investing their faith and pocket money in an old man who got beaten up by a Love Island contestant ('Hustler's' 'University' was "founded" half a decade ago - anyone graduated yet lads?). They don't want to interact with another person (they wouldn't know how to for a start) but instead desperately demand a vague sense of entitlement to be fulfilled. And they walk among us, and they poison our one and only life with their toxic drivel, and it is extremely boring. So, viva la sex bots: if these losers could have what they think they need - a biddable body to rut and rot away with in their sordid little grief holes - then incel culture would be silenced overnight.
In a paradigm flipping premise, Bennet De Brabandere's (writer, director, ace namer) Raptus sees sexual assault survivor Sarah (Ksenia Solo) prescribed a "Raptus" cybernetic humanoid as part of her ongoing recovery within the domestic sci-fi's five-minutes-into-the-future plotline. It is an unlikely in-diegesis contrivance to be sure (in a narrative which does occasionally engineer plot points which lean towards convenience...) but one which sets up the pieces for a vivid, fresh and surprising cat and mouse two hander. Think the end of Fatal Attraction meets Hardware (or, you know, the comic strip it was ripped off from by Steve MacManus and Kevin O'Neill). The gender dynamics intrigue: it is difficult to imagine the situation reversed, with a man either requiring such practical CPT or eventually being threatened by his pet robot (perhaps a Raptus 2 could tackle this concept..?). In this poppy take on post #metoo culture, we are presented with a patriarchal system dependent on female vulnerability.
It all starts so well, though. Sarah, who cannot leave the house such is the extent of her post-traumatic stress, enjoys fashioning her Raptus. The interface is like The Sims, and Sarah models the android's face, physique and even, we find out, nob to her specifications. It duly arrives, courtesy of delivery man Murry (Zion Forrest Lee), an Ordinary Bloke (or is he?) who Sarah is automatically terrified of. The concept is that being around an artificial male presence will re-condition the distraught Sarah, and when she does unbox her humanoid Murry's plainness is juxtaposed graphically by Raptus' sheeny handsomeness. He's a Ken doll come to life; a boy band member poured into the physique of a Hemsworth.
Both leads are great, but Nolan Gerard Funk (these names, man) is fucking brilliant as the robot: obsequious, instinctively carnal (in Raptus there is the accepted suggestion that, just like the early days of video and the internet now, the main reason people use this tech is for sexual purposes), by turns goofy or threatening. With the clean, modernist interiors of Sarah's home and the camera's framing of Funk, Raptus adopts a male homosexual gaze, a visual idiosyncrasy which suits the off-kilter genre approach.
In keeping with the ongoing genre come-back (although it seems that Raptus was made three years ago - prescient in several ways), there are elements of the erotic thriller here, with the yielding droid giving Sarah prolonged oral sex, and a careful discussion of safe words (is there an argument that the humble vibrator is the original, rudimentary sexbot after all?). Consent is consolidated by Raptus' control panel, which balances "Seductiveness/ Aggression/ Charm/ Manner." And if Sarah felt that the status quo wasn't challenging enough for her, it might be a slightly ridiculous narrative twist to get Murry to essentially chip Raptus to allow his aggression full reign? Or perhaps not, because, despite her victim-status, we do see odd moments of cruelty from Sarah as she sadistically tests her robot's obedience, a narrative darkness which is also endorsed by Murry and the broken Lana Del Rey-alike doll he keeps chained up in his garage...
As the film moves towards its inevitable climax, wire and steel comes up against heart and soul as Sarah battles for her life, and the film deploys some highly distinctive iconography (how did that robot cock function?!), shocking us to the very end (poor Murry). Even the soundtrack is fun with its bespoke needle drops, some of which Raptus does some extremely wack dancing to. Bar a few bugs, Raptus is a movie machine-calibrated for thrills.
Raptus is on UK/ROI VOD from January 27th.
