''Archive'' is a 2020 British

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

film written and directed by Gavin Rothery, in his directorial debut. It stars

Theo James Theodore Peter James Kinnaird Taptiklis (born 16 December 1984) is an English actor. He gained recognition for playing Tobias Eaton in '' The Divergent Series'' film trilogy (2014–2016). He has starred in the horror films '' Underworld: Awak ...

Stacy Martin Stacy Martin (born 20 March 1990) is a French actress. Her breakthrough role was playing Joe as a young woman in Lars von Trier's 2013 drama film '' Nymphomaniac''. She is a frequent collaborator with Brady Corbet, having appeared in his films ...

Rhona Mitra Rhona Natasha Mitra (born 9 August 1976) is a British actress. Mitra is known for her roles as Sonja in '' Underworld: Rise of the Lycans'' (2009); as Major Rachel Dalton in the second and third seasons of '' Strike Back'' (2012–2013); as Rac ...

Peter Ferdinando Peter Ferdinando is a British character actor, known for his varied performances. He has collaborated extensively with director and cousin Gerard Johnson, playing the title role in the short film ''Tony'' (2005), and in its expanded feature film ...

, Timea Maday Kinga and

Toby Jones Toby Edward Heslewood Jones''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com (born 7 September 1966) is an English actor. He is known for his extensive character actor roles on stage and screen. From 1989 ...

. Set in 2038, the film follows a scientist who is trying to advance

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

a step further than human beings, all while bringing his wife back from the dead. The film was originally set to premiere at

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

in March 2020 but was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. It instead received a digital release with limited screenings in theatres around the United States on 10 July 2020.

Plot

Decades in the future, Jules and George Almore have a car accident in which Jules dies. Her consciousness is stored in a device created by the company Archive, which allows George to have simulated conversations with her on the phone for up to 200 hours. At his job, George secretly begins developing a robot that will be able to hold her consciousness permanently. After learning from two initial attempts (J1 and J2), his final version (J3) is almost complete. J2 (which has the brain of a 16-year-old) becomes jealous of George's work on J3, and increasingly begins behaving unpredictably. Archive sends a team to George's workplace to inspect the machine with his wife's consciousness. They notice he's tampered with it and built robots, and they suspect he's stealing their intellectual property. George finishes the J3 robot. J2, confronted with the realization that she will never be anything more or better than she already is, destroys herself by walking into a lake. Archive recovers the robot, and threatens to sue George's company. When she learns that George has been building robots, his boss fires him. He makes the final call to his wife on the Archive machine, and ends the call saying "see you soon." J3 overhears this and realizes that he intends to overwrite her consciousness with that of his wife. Though initially angry and afraid, she accepts her fate. The upload is completed as security storms George's lab. At this point, any sign of the security team suddenly evaporates, and all is calm. The Archive starts ringing with an incoming call from Jules. J3 implores him not to answer, but George does and speaks to Jules, also hearing a child's voice on the line which is revealed to be that of his daughter. George was the one who died in the accident, while Jules survived and is now raising their daughter in the real world, and the ordeal he went through was a simulation within his own Archive, which has finally expired. With his Archive expired, it has been prepared for burial at his official funeral. Jules and their daughter say their final goodbyes and leave.

Cast

as George Almore *

as Jules Almore/J3, George's wife **Martin also provides the voice for the robot J2 *

as Simone, VP of Internal Development at Artisan Robotics *

as Mr. Tagg *Richard Glover as Melvin, an associate of Vincent Sinclair *Hans Peterson as Elson *

Lia Williams Lia Williams (born 26 November 1964) is an English actress and director, on stage, in film and television. She has had television roles in ''The Crown'' (playing Wallis Simpson), in ''May 33rd'' (2004) for which she was nominated for a BAFTA, ...

as the voice system of George's house *

as Vincent Sinclair, an executive of the Archive company

Production

On 14 May 2017, it was announced that concept and graphic artist Gavin Rothery, who had worked with

Duncan Jones Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones (born 30 May 1971) is a British film director, film producer and screenwriter. He directed the films ''Moon'' (2009), ''Source Code'' (2011), '' Warcraft'' (2016), and '' Mute'' (2018). For ''Moon'', he won the BAFT ...

on his first feature, ''

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

'', would write and direct ''Archive'' with

set to star. On 31 October 2018, Philip Herd and Cora Helfrey of Independent joined as producers for the project, with

starring opposite Theo James. James also brought on his production label, Untapped, and would be producing alongside Andrew D. Corkin.

Vertical Entertainment Vertical (formerly Vertical Entertainment) is an American independent film distribution company founded by producers Rich Goldberg and Mitch Budin in 2012. Vertical releases films across all mediums, including theatrical, video on demand, physica ...

later acquired the distribution rights for the U.S, with the international rights currently up for sale. Principal photography began in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

in late October 2018 and ended in February 2019. Laurie Rose served as director of photography. The digital make up and advance clean up was done by the UK-based company Koala FX.

Release

The film was released on 10 July 2020 on digital streaming platforms by

after it was pulled from

in March 2020 which was cancelled due to the

. Limited screenings were also available in various theatres around the U.S. The film was released on 13 August 2020 in Russia in 260 screens and was number 5 at the box office charts in its opening weekend.

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, ''Archive'' holds an approval rating of 78% based on 37 reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads: "''Archive'' executes its fairly basic program efficiently, offering sci-fi fans an engaging meditation on love and human nature." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a weighted average of score of 67 out of 100, based on six critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Accolades

References

External links

* * {{Rotten Tomatoes, archive, Archive 2020 directorial debut films 2020 films 2020 science fiction films 2020s British films 2020s English-language films British robot films British science fiction films Films about consciousness transfer Films not released in theaters due to the COVID-19 pandemic Films scored by Steven Price Films set in 2038 Vertical (film company) films English-language science fiction films Films about androids Films about robots