Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult have feelings. (Jessica Forde/A24)
Equals is the kind of movie that should have an “i” in its title so the poster art could dot it with a little heart. But there’s a problem with that: this isn’t a coming of age love story about two young people trying to navigate the real world; it’s a dystopian science fiction fantasy about a world in which emotions are forbidden.
Silas (Nicholas Hoult) works in The Collective, a futuristic community made up of coldly brutalist architecture, giant touch screens for all your news and work needs, and an all-white wardrobe, all year-round.
Oh, and yeah, emotions are forbidden.
Clunky exposition helpfully points out that The Collective has no room for feelings, which are in fact considered a disease called Switched On Syndrome—SOS for short. Particularly dangerous are “couplers,” like one man and woman who we see whisked away to the dreaded containment den after their disease leads them to have feelings together. And if you were wondering how babies get born, that comes from special “Inception Duty.”
It’s a difficult atmosphere that drives some members of The Collective to suicide, and when a jumper brutally plummets to their death in full view of a stylish picture window, Silas notices that in this sea of curious but affectless workers, Nia (Kristen Stewart), grimaces and clenches her fists open and closed. She looks pretty upset! Could she be having … feelings?
You see, Nia has SOS, and is a particular kind of sufferer: a “hider” who can disguise her empathy from everyone else—except, apparently, for Silas. Although the condition is not supposed to be contagious, guess what: Silas contracts it too, and the two begin to awkwardly share forbidden emotions, but not without being noticed!
If this all sounds silly, it is terribly so, down to the film’s clinical production design, maudlin score, and cinematography, which naturally resorts to handheld camera when feelings are felt.
Director Drake Doremus has a thing for star-crossed lovers; while the romance in his 2011 film Like Crazy was thwarted by an expired student visa, the poor misunderstood kids in Equals are done in by a society that not only doesn’t care about their feelings but wants to eradicate them. Screenwriter Nathan Parker even threatens to pull a tragic Romeo and Juliet ending. But Joanie Loves Chachi is a more affecting love story than this would-be champion of the human heart.
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Equals
Directed by Drake Doremus
Written by Nathan Parker
With Nicholas Hoult, Kristen Stewart, Guy Pearce
Rated PG-13 for thematic content, sensuality, partial nudity and disturbing images
101 minutes
Opens today at Angelika Pop-Up
